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TICKNOR AND FIELDS'S 
HOUSEHOLD LIBRARY OF BIOGRAPHY. 



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PERSONAL 



HISTORY OF LORD BACON. 



FROM UNPUBLISHED PAPERS. 



PER S NAL 



HISTORY OF LORD BACON. 



FROM UNPUBLISHED PAPERS, 



By WILLIAM HEPWORTH DIXON 

OF THE INNER TEMPLE. v 



BOSTON: 
TIOKNOR AND FIELDS 



M DCCC LXI. 






, u 



author's edition. 






University Press, Cambridge : 
Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, * Co. 



NOTE PEOM THE AUTHOB. 

I feel happy and proud that an arrangement with 
Messrs. Ticknor and Fields to reprint The Personal 
History of Lord Bacon gives me the opportunity of 
pleading before the American public for the good fame 
of one who, dear as he is to the Old World, has an 
especial claim on the sympathies of the New. 

W. HEPWORTH DIXON. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

The Biographers. 

PAGE 

1. Art and Nature 1 

2. Pope's Satire on Bacon 2 

3. Can one be Good and Evil ? . .* . . . .2 

4. Traducers of Bacon 3 

5. Corruption of Pope's Period 3 

6. Difference between contemporary Libels and modern Satires 4 

7. Hume, Hallam, Lingard, and Macaulay .... 5 
-j 8. Lord Campbell's Life of Bacon . . . ' f . . 5 

9. Importance of a true Estimate 6 

10. Bacon among his Competitors 7 

11. His Pise in Life slow and late 8 

.12. Why was his Pise deferred ? 8 

13. "Difficulties of the Satirical Theory . . . ... 8 

14. The Questions proposed for Illustration .... 9 

15. Careers of his chief Political Contemporaries . . . .10 

16. His chief Legal Contemporaries 11 

17. True Critics judge by the Whole 11 

18. Spedding's Edition of Bacon's Works 11 

CHAPTER II. 

Early Years. 

1. Picture of Bacon in his Youth 13 

2. Moral Beauty of his Early Life 14 

3. The Bacon Household. Lady Ann and her two Sons . . 16 



Vlll 



CONTENTS. 



Bacon at Gray's Inn. In the House of Commons. His early 

Style . . . 

Bacon to Wylie, July 11, 1580 
Burghley's Relation to him . 
Bacon's early Parliament Life 
Character of the Sessions in which he serves 
His Rivals in the House of Commons . 
His Personal Appearance at Twenty-four 
Session of 1586. Bacon represents Taunton 
Excitement in the Country . 

Mary Queen of Scots 

Popular Demand for her Execution 

The forged Libels against Elizabeth . 

Bacon's Fame as a Member of Parliament 

Session of 1589. Bacon's Speech on Subsidies 

Anthony comes Home. The Brothers at Gray's Inn Square 

Sir Nicholas Bacon. Dealings with the Jews 

A Queen's Ward 

Bacon to Lady Ann, Feb. 18, 1592 

Lady Ann's Care of her Son. Good Advice . 

Lady Ann to Anthony Bacon, May 24, 1592 

The Brothers set up a Coach. Lady Ann's Objections to it 

Session of 1593. Principal Members of the Commons. War 

and Plague. State of London .... 
Bacon proposes his great Law Reform 
Check to the Government. Lord Campbell's Mistake 
Burghley's Proposal for Double Subsidies . 
Bacon's famous Speech and Defeat of the Crown . 

Bacon defends his Speech 

Raleigh proposes a Compromise .... 
Defeat of the Government 



18 
18 

20 
21 
22 
23 
25 
25 
26 
27 
29 
29 
30 
31 

32 
34 
34 
35 
36 
37 

38 
39 
40 
41 
42 
43 
44 
45 



CHAPTER III. 

The Earl of Essex. 



1. A Candidate for Office. Edward Coke . . . . .47 

2. Catherine Carey. Her Grandson. Robert Devereux, Earl 

of Essex 48 

3. Scandals against Queen Elizabeth 49 



CONTENTS. IX 

4. Elizabeth's Relation to Essex . .* . . . .51 

5. Essex and Francis Bacon. Bacon's Poverty . . . 52 
Bacon to Lady Ann, April 16, 1593 52 

6. The Brothers in Debt. Designs for raising Money. Spencer 

the Miser 54 

Bacon to Mr. Spencer, -Sept. 19, 1593 54 

7. Bacon Sick 55 

Bacon to Lady Paulett, Sept. 23, 1593 . . . . . . 56 

8. Anthony and Francis enter the Earl's Service . . .57 

9. Duns at Gray's Inn 58 

Bacon to Lady Ann, Oct. 3, 1593 . . . . . .58 

Ditto, Nov. 2, 1593 59 

10. Bacon's Prospects dashed by Essex 60 

Essex to Francis Bacon, March 24, 1594 . . . . 61 

11. Bacon's Surprise and Resolution 61 

Bacon to Sir Robert Cecil, May 1,1594 . . . . 62 

Cecil's good Wishes .... ... 62 

Cecil to Bacon, May 1, 1594 . . . . . . 63 

12. Sickness of his Mother 63 

Bacon to Lady Ann, June 9, 1594 ... . . . 64 

13. Visit to Gorhanibury. Anthony's easy Nature . , . .65 
Lady Ann to Francis Bacon, Aug. 20, 1594 . . . 6Q 

Bad News at Court 67 

Francis to Anthony Bacon, Aug. 26, 1594 . . . . 67 
Lady Ann cautions her Son against the Earl . . . .68 

14. The Roman League 68 

15. Bacon sick. Lady Ann's Consolations . . . . .69 
Lady Ann to Anthony Bacon, June 3, 1595. . . . 70 
The Queen's Bounty to Bacon. She appoints him her Learned 

Counsel, and gives him the Pitts 71 

16. Lady Ann to Anthony Bacon, Aug. 7, 1595 . . . .71 

17. Sir Walter Raleigh. Bacon's proposed Compliment to the 

Guiana Voyage 72 

18. Essex jealous. Burghley and Cecil support Raleigh's Voyage 74 

19. Fleming made Solicitor-General 74 

20. The Error about Twickenham Park 75 

21. Essex's Patch of Meadow 76 

22. Elizabeth's Munificence to Bacon 77 

23. She grants him a Reversion of Twickenham Park . . .78 

a* 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Treason of Sir John Smyth. 



Bacon's Legal Employments 80 

Expedition sails for Cadiz 80 

Francis to Anthony Bacon, May 15, 1596 . . . . 81 
Ditto, May 31, 1596 . . . .82 

Essex's superfluous Kindness . . . . . .83 

Essex to Egerton, May 27, 1596 83 

Excitement in the Country 84 

Sir John Smyth . ... . . . . 85 

Attempt to excite Mutiny 87 

Bacon one of the Commissioners to take his Examination. 

Declares the Crime High Treason 88 

News from Cadiz 89 

Discontent of Essex. Cecil Secretary of State. Lady Ann's 

Warnings to her Sons 90 

Lady Ann to Anthony Bacon, July 10, 1596 . . . . 92 

Bacon's Differences with Essex 93 

They cease their Intercourse. Francis in Love. Lady Hat- 
ton and her Suitors ....... 94 

Essex deserts his Post. Falls under the Sway of Sir Christo- 
pher Blount ... 95 

Lady Leicester and her Children 96 

Blount . 97 

Blount's Influence. Essex's Choice between Bacon and Blount 99 
Session of 1597. Bacon Member for Ipswich . . . 100 
Great Motion on the State of the Country . . . .101 
Yeomen and the Land. Deer and Parks . . . 103 

Jesuits on the Land Question .... .104 

Bacon's Proposals 105 

Conference with the Lords 105 

Essex opposes Bacon's Bills . . . . . . 106 

Success of Bacon's Measures 106 

Grant of Cheltenham and Charlton Kings . . . 107 



CONTENTS. 



XI 



CHAPTER V. 

The Ikish Plot. 



1. Roman Catholic Conspiracy at Essex House 

2. Plan of the Plotters 

3. Irish Insurrection 

4. Movement of English Troops .... 

5. Essex gains the Command 

6. Coke marries Lady Hatton . . . 

7. Essex visits Gray's Inn. Bacon's Advice rejected 

8. The Jesuits approve the Plot .... 

9. Roman Catholics in Command 

10. Lord Southampton 

11. Essex confers with O'Neile 

12. Armaments in England. Essex returns . 

13. Shakespeare's Richard the Second. Essex arrested 

14. Montjoy goes to Dublin. Wood's Confession . 

15. Essex deserted by all save Bacon 

16. Bacon's Generosity 

17. Bacon ignorant of Essex's real Crimes . 

18. Intercedes with the Queen .... 

19. Hayward's seditious Tract 

20. Curious Conversation of Bacon and Elizabeth . 

21. Bacon's Note to Howard 

22. Essex liberated. The Queen's Pledge 



109 
110 
111 
112 
113 
114 
114 
116 
117 
118 
119 
119 
121 
121 
123 
124 
125 
126 
127 
128 
12S 
129 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Street Fight. 

1. The Plot renewed . . . . ' . . . .132 

2. Catesby, Wright, and Winter . . . . . . 133 

3. Proposal to assassinate the Queen 134 

4. Valentine Thomas's Secret Mission 134 

Points of Thomas's Confession . . . '. . .135 
The Secret kept 136 

5. Attempt on Raleigh 137 

6. The Conspirators resolve to rise 137 



Xll CONTENTS. 

7. Send for Phillips to Essex House. Shakespeare's Play per- 

formed . . .138 

8. The Street Demonstration 138 

9. Elizabeth at Whitehall . . . . . . .139 

10. Fight in the City. The Conspirators in Jail . . . 139 

11. Essex put on Trial 141 

12. Bacon's Speech ........ 142 

13. Essex confesses against his Accomplices . . . .145 

14. Elizabeth's Gifts to Bacon 146 

Council to Coke, Aug. 6, 1601 146 

15. Mysterious Escape of Monteagle from Justice . . . 148 

16. Lord Campbell's Judgment of Bacon's Conduct . . .148 

17. Contemporary Opinions. Double Elections for Ipswich and 

St. Albans 150 



CHAPTER VII. 

The New Reign. 

1. Desire of James for Peace with Spain 152 

2. Bacon and the New Court 153 

3. The Session of 1604. Election of Speaker . . . .154 

4. Grievances of the Commons. Union with Scotland . . 155 

5. Bacon's Position in the House 157 

6. Lord Campbell's Errors . . . . . . . 158 

7. Alice Barnham 159 

8. Alice Barnham's Mother and Sisters . . . . 160 

9. Sir John Pakington 161 

10. Westwood Park 164 

11. Bacon in Love 165 

12. The Powder Plot 166 

Bacon to Cecil, Nov. 8, 1605 167 

13. Bacon's Tolerance. Case of Tobie Mathews . . .168 

14. Sir John and the Ladies in London . . . • . 169 

15. Differences between Sir John and Bacon. Bacon's Political 

Views . . - 171 

16. Cecil consults him on the Money-Bills . . . . 174 
Bacon to Cecil, Feb. 10, 1606 175 

1 7. Warm Debate on Subsidies . . • . . . 175 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

18. Bacon's Fears of a Division 176 

Bacon to Cecil, March 22, 1606 177 

Rumor that the King is slain .177 

19. Bacon's Speech 178 

20. Proposes to Alice. His worldly Position and Prospects . 179 

21. The Wedding Feast. Alice's Dowry . . . . 181 

22. A new Disappointment. Egerton's Suggestion . . .182 

23. The Government in Difficulties. Bacon conciliated . 183 

24. Fuller's Speech against the Scots . . . .185 

25. Bacon's Reply 186 

26. Bacon appointed Solicitor- General 189 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Solicitor- General. 

1. Six Years of Office . . 190 

2. Cecil's Riches and Prosperity 191 

3. Bacon's ceremonial Politeness with his Cousin . . .192 

Bacon to Cecil, Aug. 24, 1608 193 

Essay on Deformity 193 

4. The Court of Wales ......! 193 

5. Sir John Pakington's Quarrel with Lord Eure . . .195 

6. Bacon argues against Pakington . . . . . 196 

7. Bacon one of the Founders of America . . . .197 

8. England and Spain as Colonists 197 

9. Spanish Designs against Virginia. Fleet under Gates and 

Summers 198 

10. The City of Raleigh . .200 

11. The Solicitor in Opposition 200 

12. Crown Privileges for Sale . . . . . . . 201 

13. Coke against Bacon 202 

14. Bacon's Speech on the Feudal Burdens .... 203 

15. Bargains made and broken 203 

16. Death of Cecil. Bacon's Answer to James .... 204 

1 7. Bacon proposed for Secretary of State .... 205 

18. Court of Wards . . .206 

Bacon to Lord Rochester, Nov. 14, 1612 . . . . 206 
Wards and Liveries 207 



XIV CONTENTS. 

19. Ireland 207 

20. Sir Arthur Chichester's Government . ... 208 

21. Irish Members in London. Bacon's Advice . . 210 
Bacon to King James, Aug. 13, 1613 . . • . . . 210 

22. Bacon made Attorney-General. Coke indignant . . 212 
23« A new Session. Bacon returned for Cambridge, Ipswich, 

and St. Albans. Sits for Cambridge . . . . 213 
24. Curious Debate on these Elections. Vast Popularity of the 

Attorney-General 215 



CHAPTER IX. 

St. John and Peacham. 

1. Lord Campbell's Omissions . . . . . . .218 

2. Offence of Oliver St. John 218 

3. St. John sent to the Tower 220 

4. His amazing Abjectness . 221 

St. John to the King ........ 221 

5. Lord Campbell's Mistakes . . . . . 223 

6. The Case of Peacham . . . . . . . . 224 

7. His infamous Character 225 

8. Difficulty suggested by Hallam. Peacham libels his Bishop . 226 

9. Condemned by Archbishop Abbott . . . . . 227 

10. Discovery of his Political Libels 228 

11. Peacham's Accusation of his Patron, John Paulett . . 228 

12. Commission of Examination 229 

13. Question by Torture 231 

14. Character of the Age 233 

15. Bacon opposed to Judicial Torture 234 

16. Peacham's Condemnation . 235 

17. Confession 236 

1 8. Macaulay's Assertion on the Practice of consulting the Judges 238 

19. The Precedent of Legate 239 

20. Charge against Paulett abandoned 240 



CONTENTS. 



XV 



CHAPTER X. 

Race with Coke. 

1. Bacon and Somerset . .241 

2. Character and Policy of Somerset . . . . . 241 

3. The Romanist Party at Court. Lady Somerset. Murder of 

Overbury . . . 243 

4. Publication of " The Wife " 244 

5. Inquiry into the Crime. Rise of Villiers .... 244 
' 6. Trial of the Murderers 246 

7. The Earl and Countess arraigned . . . . . 246 

8. Bacon pleads for Clemency 247 

9. Bacon's Domestic Trials. Sir John quarrels with Lady Pa- 

kington. Warrant of Search 248 

10. Lady Pakington tries to rule Bacon. His Defence . . 250 
Bacon to Lady Pakington, 1616 251 

11. Sir William and Sir Thomas Monson . . . . 252 

12. Bacon's Efforts to save them. Coke's Animosity . . . 253 
Bacon to Coke, Apl. 16, 1616 (?) 254 

13. Popular Feeling against Sir Thomas 254 

14. Fall of Coke 255 

15. Case of Commendams . — 256 

16. James's Message to Coke through Bacon . . . . 257 

17. His Message direct 258 

18. The Judges on their Trial 259 

19. Bacon defends himself against Coke 260 

20. Coke condemned by Egerton 260 

21. Bacon sworn of the Council. Procures the Restoration of 

Dr. Burgess 261 

22. Coke in the Star Chamber 262 

23. Lady Hatton deserts him 263 

24. Monson's Case referred to Bacon s 264 

Bacon to the King, Dec. 7,1616 265 

Monson Pardoned 266 

25. Illness of Egerton. Public Business 266 

26. Mysterious Tale of Lady Arabella having borne a Son. Ba- 

con's Inquiry . 267 

27. Bacon receives the Seals 270 



XVI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XI. 
Lord Chancellor. 

1. Rage of Coke 272 

2. Story of Egerton's later Days 273 

3. The Gold and Silver Thread Business 274 

4. Egerton opposes the Patent to Mompesson . . . ' 275 

5. Buckingham seeks his Ruin . . . . . . .276 

6. Buckingham loses by the Transfer of the Seals to Bacon . 276 

7. Coke's Insinuations against Bacon . . . . .277 

8. Lady Hatton 278 

9. Frances Coke sold to Sir John Villiers. Lady Hatton's op- 

position. Escape to Oatlands 279 

10. Bacon refuses Lady Buckingham's Request for Warrants of 

Arrest 281 

11. Coke breaks into Withipole's House. His Wife appeals to 

the Council 281 

12. Coke, threatened with Proceedings, submits . . . 282 

13. Lord Campbell's Errors 284 

14. Buckingham's Interference 285 

15. Marriage of Sir John Villiers and Frances Coke . . .285 

16. Domestic Broils of Sir John Pakington. Bacon's Delicacy 

and Consideration 286 

Chamberlain to Carleton, July 5, 1617 . . . . 287 

17. Bacon's Rise and Prosperity ...... 288 

18. Suddenness of his Fall 289 

CHAPTER XII. 

Fees. 

1. Universality of Fees 290 

2. Fees in Government Offices 290 

3. Fees on the Bench 291 

4. Fees at the Bar 292 

5. Fees not an old Grievance 293 

6. Bills to limit Fees rejected by the Commons . . . 294 
Sir Francis Bacon's Speech on Fees in 1606 .... 295 



CONTENTS. XV11 

7. Desire to change the System 299 

8. Lady Buckingham hostile to Bacon. Sir Lionel Cranfield. 

Sir James Ley 300 

9. Suffolk prosecuted and ruined 302 

10. Sir Henry Yelverton 302 

11. Prosecuted in Star Chamber 304 

Bacon's Notes of a Speech, Nov. 10, 1620 .... 304 

Yelverton Condemned 305 

12. Montagu becomes Treasurer . . . . - . . 306 

13. Coventry Attorney 306 

14. Character of Cranfield 307 

15. His Ambition and Unscrupulousness 308 

16. Lady Buckingham's Lover, John "Williams . . . 309 

17. The Confederacy against Bacon 310 

18. John Churchill . . . , . . . . 312 

19. The New Session 313 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The Accusation. 

1. An Empty Treasury. Bacon's Jest . . . . . 314 

2. Bacon proposes a New Parliament. Foreign Affairs . 314 

3. Agitation in England 316 

4. Bacon proposes Reform 317 

5. Preliminaries of the Session . . . . . . .318 

Bacon and Others to Buckingham, Nov. 29, 1620 . . 318 

6. Writs go out. James alarmed by the Elections . . .323 

7. Stern Character of the new Parliament. Rage against Papists 323 

8. Coke heads the Fanatics 324 

9. Bacon's Tolerance unpopular 325 

10. Coke takes advantage of it 326 

11. Inquiry into Abuses welcomed by Bacon . . . . 326 

12. Quarrel of Scrope and Berkshire. Bacon offends Lady 

Buckingham 327 

13. Cranfield attacks the Chancery 328 

14. Buckingham urges the Commons to demand Victims . . 328 

15. Aubrey and Egerton's Cases brought forward . . . 330 

16. Heneage Finch defends Bacon 332 



XV111 CONTENTS. 

17. Churchill's Evidence . . 333 

18. Bacon's Confidence .333 

19. Bacon sick. His Remarks on the Accusation. Declaration of 

his Innocence . 334 

20. The Twenty-two Charges 336 

21. The Case sent up to the Lords 338 

22. Ley appointed to preside 339 

23. Bacon's Self-examination 339 

24. Preliminary Vote in the Peers 340 

25. Bacon's Confession 342 

26. Ley delivers Sentence 342 

CHAPTER XIV. 

After Sentence. 

1. Bacon's Statement of the Case 344 

2. End of the Movement for Reform . . . . . 344 

3. Division of Spoil among the Confederates. Fall of Montagu 345 

4. Bacon's Fine remitted 346 

5. Busy with his Books. His witty Sayings. Applies for the 

Provostship of Eton 347 

Bacon to Conway, March 25, 1623 348 

6. Conway supports his Suit . 349 

Bacon to Conway, March 29, 1623 350 

Dignity of Bacon's Conduct 351 

7. Bacon to King James, March 29, 1623 351 

Ditto Conway, April 23, 1623 .... 352 

8. Ditto, Sept. 2, 1623 353 

Buckingham adverse. Provostship given to Sir Henry Wotton 353 

9. Bacon's Literary Work 354 

10. Fall of his Enemies. Coke. Misery of Sir John Villiers . 354 

11. Fall of Churchill and Cranfield 356 

12. Fall of Williams 356 

13. Death of Bacon 357 



CONTENTS. XIX 



APPENDICES. 

I. Letter from Ann Lady Bacon to Lord Burghley 361 

II. Letters from Lady Bacon to her Son Anthony 364 

III. Letter from Anne Bacon to her Brothers Fran- 

cis and Anthony 392 

IV. Letters from Francis Bacon to Various Persons 393 
V. Letter from Anthony Bacon to Francis Bacon 417 

VI. Letters by the Earl of Essex .... 418 

VII. Extracts from the Privy Council Registers . 420 

VIIL Report by Bacon and Others to the Privy Council 424 



FEANOIS BACON 



CHAPTER I. 



THE BIOGRAPHERS. 



1. A fine wit has told the world that all men and i. ]. 
women, all youths and girls, are true poets, save only 
those who write in verse. In such a saying, as in all 
good wit, there lies a core of truth. Men who have kept 
the poetry of their lives unshaped by art stand face to 
face with nature, seeing the blue sky, the bursting leaf, 
the hush of noon, the rising and setting sun, the green 
glade, the flowing sea, as these things are ; not as they 
appear in books, cut off into lengths of lines, tricked into 
antithetical phrase, rounded and closed by rhyme. No 
false rule of art impels a man who sees and feels, but who 
does not mean to write or paint, to squint at a group of 
elms, to peer through his hand at moonlight shimmering 
on a lake, or at sunset on the tops of a range of hills ; 
for such a man has no thought of how tree, lake, and alp 
may be described in verse of five or six feet, or of the 
lines in which this or that old painter would have framed 

1 A 



Z FEANCIS BACON. 

T. 2. them. He comes fresh to nature, and has an intimate 
and poetical relation to her. 

2. As with nature, so with man. That figure, decked 
by Pope,— 

The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind, — 

over which fools have grinned and rogues have rubbed 
their palms for more than a hundred years, has never yet 
been recognized by honest hearts. Men who trust the 
face of nature, not the point of satire, turn from this 
daub as from a false note in song, or from a painted liv- 
ing face. The young and pure reject satire, and they 
do well to reject it ; for satire is the disease of art. The 
young and pure will not believe a thing true because it is 
made to look false. Taught by heaven, and not by rules, 
they judge of character in the mass. Nature abhors 
antitheses ; loving the soft approach of dawn, the slow 
sprouting of the seed, and moving by a delicate gradation 
through her round of calm and storm, of growth and life. 
Her forks never flash from a blue vault, nor do her waves 
cease to crest when the wind which whipped them lulls. 
Gradation is her law. If she may make a god or devil, 
she will not put the two in one. That is the task of art ; 
but of art in its lowest stage of depravity and decline. 

3. Can you be good and evil, wise and mean ? Gazing 
on the girl-like face in Hilyard's miniature, conning the 
deep lore of the Essays, toying with the mirth of the 



THE BIOGKAPHEKS. 6 

Apothegms, lingering on the tale of a gay and pure, a I 3. 
busy and loving life, — how can they who judge by wholes 
and not by parts admit that one so eminently wise and 
good was also a false friend, a venal judge, a dishonest 
man ? 

4. Yet this comedy of errors has run its course from 
Alexander Pope to John Lord Campbell. Strange to say, 
the grave writers have gone nearly as far astray from fact 
as those bright Parthians who, in choosing their shafts, 
look rather to the feather than the flight. With them 
Bacon is, in turn, abject, venal, proud, profuse, — ungrate- 
ful for the gifts of Essex, mercenary in his love for Alice 
Barnham, callous to the groans of Peacham, servile in 
the House of Commons, corrupt on the judicial bench ! 

5. The lie against nature in the name of Francis Ba- 
con broke into high literary force with Pope. Before his 
day the scandal had only oozed in the slime of Welden, 
Chamberlain, and D'Ewes. Pope picked it, as he might 
have picked a rough old flint, from the mud ; fanged it, 
poisoned it, set it on his shaft : — 

Meanest of mankind ! 

What if it be a lie ? May not a lie kill ? 

It was not the only scum which in Pope's day frothed 
to the head. What man then believed in nobleness, even 
in intellect, unless that intellect were of the lowest type, 
or served the basest cause ? The sole end of wit was 



4 FRANCIS BACON. 

I. 5. defamation, the sole end of poetry vice. Of pure genius 
there was little, of high virtue less. All glorious charac- 
ters, all serious things, if not gone wholly from the minds 
of men, lingered in their memories only to be reviled. 
When Bacon became the meanest of mankind, Raleigh 
was assailed, and Shakespeare driven from the stage. 
Rowe was tainting our national drama, St. John undoing 
our political philosophy, Hume training his mind through 
doubts of God for the task of painting the most manly 
passage of arms in all history as our greatest blunder and 
our darkest shame. How should Francis Bacon have 
escaped his share in this moral wreck ? 

6. No man of rank in letters had yet soiled his fame ; 
for the foes who had lived in his own age, who had danced 
with him in the Gray's Inn masques, or had bowed to 
him as he rode down to the House, — even those who, 
like Sir Robert Cecil and Sir Edward Coke, had most to 
fear from his gladiatorial strength, and in the madness 
of that fear pursued him with taunts and hate, — had 
never dreamt of denying that his virtues and his courage 
stood fairly in line with his vast abilities of tongue and 
pen. They had called him blind when they could not 
see, as he could, all the faces of an object. They had 
denied to his gratitude the strong vitality of his intellect- 
ual power. They had spoken of his vanity, of his pre- 
sumption, of his dandyism, of his unsound learning and 
unsafe law; but the malice of these rivals had never 
strayed so far as to accuse him, to the ears of men who 



LORD CAMPBELL. 5 

heard him in the House of Commons and met him at I. 6. 
the tavern or the play, of a radical meanness of heart. 
Coke had called him a fool. Cecil had fancied him a 
dupe. Bat neither his rancorous rival at the bar, nor his 
sordid cousin at Whitehall, had ever thought him a ras- 
cal. That was the invention of a later time. 

The age that took Voltaire to be its guide, found out 
that Bacon had been a rogue. 

7. Since then he has been the prey of painters and 
pasquins ; his offences deepening, darkening, as men have 
moved yet farther and farther from the springs of truth. 
Hume is comparatively fair to him. Hallam is less fair ; 
though he will not, even for the sake of Pope, call Bacon 
the meanest of mankind. Lingard paints him with a 
more unctuous hate. Macaulay, in turn, is fierce and 
gay : his sketch of Rembrandt power : his lights too high, 
his smears too black : noon on the brow, dusk at the 
heart. Nature never yet made such a man as Macau- 
lay paints. 

8. But of all the sins against Francis Bacon, that of 
Lord Campbell is the last and worst. I wish to speak 
with respect of so bold and great a man as our present 
Lord Chancellor. He is one who has swept up the slope 
of fame by native power of heart and brain ; in the 
proud course of his life, from the Temple to the Peer- 
age, from the Reporters' Gallery to the Woolsack, I ad- 
mire the track of a man of genius, — brave, circumspect, 



6 FRANCIS BACON. 

I. 8. tenacious, strong ; one not to be put down, not to be set 
aside ; an example to men of letters and men of law. 
But the more highly I rank Lord Campbell's genius, the 
more I feel drawn to regret his haste. In such a case as 
the trial of Bacon's fame he was bound to take pains ; to 
sift every lie to its root ; to stay his condemning pen till 
he had satisfied his mind that in passing sentence of 
infamy he was right, beyond risk of appeal. A states- 
man and a law-reformer himself, he ought to have felt 
more sympathy for the just fame of a statesman and law- 
reformer than he has shown. Not that Lord Campbell 
finds fault with Bacon where he speaks by his own lights. 
Indeed, there he is just. He has no words too warm for 
Bacon's reforms as a lawyer, for his plans as a minister, 
for his rules as a chancellor. When Lord Campbell 
knows his subject at first hand, his praise of his hero 
rings out clear and loud. But there is much in the life 
of Bacon which he does not know. He has not given 
himself time to sift and winnow. Like an easy magis- 
trate on the bench, he has taken the pleas for facts. 
That is his fault, and in such a man it is a very grave 
fault. 

9. What Hallam left dark and Campbell foul should 
be cleansed as soon as may be from dust and stain. It is 
our due. One man only set aside, our interest in Ba- 
con's fame is greater than in that of any Englishman 
who ever lived. We cannot hide his light, we cannot 
cast him out. For good, if it be good, for evil, if it 



BACON AMONG HIS COMPETITORS. 7 

must be evil, his brain has passed into our brain, his soul I 9. 
into our souls. We are part of him; he is part of us ; 
inseparable as the salt and sea. The life he lived has 
become our law. If it be true that the Father of Mod- 
ern Science was a rogue and cheat, it is also most true 
that we have taken a rogue and cheat to be our god. 

10. In front of all detail of fact, a general question 
must be put. 

Bacon seemed born to power. His kinsmen filled the 
highest posts. The sovereign liked him ; for he had the 
bloom of cheek, the flame of wit, the weight of sense, 
which the great Queen sought in men who stood about 
her throne. His powers were ever ready, ever equal. 
Masters of eloquence and epigram praised him as one of 
them, or one above them, in their peculiar arts. Jonson 
tells us he commanded when he spoke, and had his 
judges pleased or angry at his will. Ealeigh tells us he 
combined the most rare of gifts ; for while Cecil could 
talk and not write, Howard write and not talk, he alone 
could both talk and write. Nor were these gifts all flash 
and foam. If no one at the court could match his tongue 
of fire, so no one in the House of Commons could breast 
him in the race of work. He put the dunce to flight, 
the drudge to shame. If he soared high above rivals in 
his more passionate play of speech, he never met a rival 
in the dull, dry task of ordinary toil. Raleigh, Hyde, 
and Cecil had small chance against him in debate ; in 
committee Yelverton and Coke had none. 

Why was he left behind ? 



8 FRANCIS BACON. 

I 11. 11. Other men got on. Coke became Attorney-General, 
Fleming Solicitor-General. Raleigh received his knight- 
hood, Cecil his knighthood. He alone won no spur, no 
place. Time passed. Devereux became a Privy Coun- 
cillor. Cobham got the Cinq Ports, Raleigh the patent 
of Yirginia. Years again raced on. A new king came 
in, and still no change. Cecil became an Earl, Howard 
an Earl. What kept the greatest of them down ? It 
was certainly not that he was hard like Popham, or crazed 
like Devereux, or gnarled like Coke. A soft voice, a 
laughing lip, a melting heart, made him hosts of friends. 
No child, no woman, could resist the spell of his sweet 
speech, of his tender smile, of his grace without study, 
his frankness without guile. Yet where he failed, men 
the most sullen and morose got on. 

12. Why did he not win his way to place ? He sought 
it : never man with more passionate haste ; for his big 
brain beat with a victorious consciousness of parts : he 
hungered, as for food, to rule and bless mankind. This 
question must be met. While men of far lower birth 
and claims got posts and honors, solicitorships, judge- 
ships, embassies, portfolios, how came this strong man 
to pass the age of forty-six without gaining power or 
place ? 

Can it have been because he was servile and cor- 
rupt ? 

13. Rank and pay, the grace of kings, the smiles of 



HOW TO BE JUDGED. V 

ministers, were in Bacon's days, as in other days before I. 13. 
and since, the wages of men who knew how to sink their 
views, to spend their years, to pledge their thought, their 
love, their faith, for a yard of ribbon or a loaf of bread. 
If Bacon were a man prostituting glorious gifts and strong 
convictions for a beck or nod, a pension or a place, why 
did he not rise ? why not grow rich ? If he were a rogue, 
he must have sold his virtue for less than Popham, his 
intelligence for less than Coke. How, then, could he be 
wise ? 

Wisest and meanest, — there is the rub ! But turn the 
case round. How if his virtues, not his vices, kept him 
down so long ? How if his honesty, tolerance, magna- 
nimity, not his heartlessness, his servility, and his cor- 
ruption, caused his fall ? 

14. Look at the broad facts of the man's life first. 
Small facts may be true, broad facts must be true. One 
day in a man's course is hard to judge ; a year less hard ; 
a whole life not at all hard. It is the same in nature. 
Watch for one night the track of a planet. Can you say 
if it move to the right or left ? You are not sure. It 
seems to go back. It seems to go on. Watch it for a 
month, and you find that its path is forward. Is the star 
in fault ? Not in the least. It is your own base that 
moves. Look at any chasm, peak, or scar on the earth's 
face : you see the earth jagged, crude, motionless. Take 
in the whole orb at once: you find it smooth, round, 
beautiful, and swift. In Bacon's own words, a wise man 
1* 



10 FRANCIS BACON. 

I. 14. " will not judge the whole play by one act." Still less 
' by one scene, one speech, one word, will he judge. 

In taking Bacon's course as a whole what do we find ? 
A man born to high rank, who seeks incessantly for place, 
who is above all men and by universal testimony fit for 
power ; yet one who passes the age of forty-six before he 
gets a start ; one who, after serving the Crown for more 
than fourteen years in the highest offices of the most lu- 
crative branch of the public administration, dies a poorer 
man than he was born. 

15. Bacon was fifty-two when he became Attorney- 
General ; fifty-seven when he became Lord Chancellor. 
For one who had been Elizabeth's young Lord Keeper at 
ten, who had been a bencher of Gray's Inn at twenty-six, 
Lent Reader at twenty-eight, this rise in his profession 
came late in life ; later than it came to barristers who 
could boast of neither his personal force nor his father's 
official rank. 

Coke was Attorney-General at forty-two. Egerton was 
Lord Keeper at forty-six ; Bromley Lord Chancellor at 
forty-seven ; Hatton at forty-eight. 

It was much the same at Court as at the Bar. Youth 
was at the prow and beauty at the helm. At twenty- 
two Sydney went ambassador to Vienna ; at thirty he 
went governor to Flushing. At twenty-six Essex was a 
Privy-Councillor ; at twenty-nine Commander-in-chief. 
At thirty-two Raleigh received his powers to plant Vir- 
ginia. 



HIS COMPARATIVE POVERTY. 11 

16. Again : if Francis Bacon rose later in life than I 16. 
Egerton or Coke, even after he had risen to the loftiest 
summit of the Bar he won for himself none of the sweets 
of office. Alone among the great lawyers of his time 
he died poor. Hatton left a prince's wealth. Egerton 
founded the noble House of Ellesmere, Montagu that 
of Manchester. Coke was one of the richest men in 
England. Popham bequeathed to his children Littlecote 
and Wellington. Bennet, Hobart, Fleming, each left a 
great estate. How explain this rule and this exception ? 

Surely they are not explained by the theory that 
Bacon's servility held him down, while Coke's servility 
sent him up ; that Bacon's corruption kept him poor, 
while Popham's corruption made him rich ! 

IT. To judge a man's life in mass may not be the way 
to please a Cecil or a Coke ; the libidinous statesman 
who made love to Lady Derby, who sold his country for 
Spanish gold, who gave power to his infamous mistress 
Lady Suffolk to vend her smiles ; or the acrid lawyer 
who gibed at Raleigh, who married a jilt for her money, 
who gave his daughter for a place. Nor is it the way 
to please those painters and lampooners who prefer dash 
to truth ; for a man so judged is not to be hit on paper 
in a mere smudge of black and white, by dubbing him 
wise and mean, sage and cheat, Solomon and Scapin, 
all in one. 

18. The lie, it may be hoped, is about to pass away. 



12 FRANCIS BACON. 

I. 18. An editor worthy of Bacon has risen to purge his fame. 
Such labors as those undertaken by Mr. Spedding de- 
mand a life, and he has not scrupled to devote the best 
years of an active and learned manhood to the prelimi- 
nary toil. Lord Bacon's Literary, Legal, and Philosoph- 
ical Works are already before the world in seven of Mr. 
Spedding's princely volumes, printed and noted with the 
most skilful and loving care. Three or four volumes 
of Occasional and Personal Works are still to come, for 
which we may have to wait as many years. Meanwhile, 
the appearance of this new edition has drawn men's 
thoughts to the character of Bacon as painted by his 
foes ; and the instinct, strong as virtue, to reject the 
spume of satire and falsehood, has sprung at the voice 
of Mr. Spedding into lusty life. To aid in some small 
part in this good work of obtaining from men of letters 
and science a reconsideration of the evidence on which 
true judgment will have to run, the new facts, the new 
letters, the new documentary illustrations comprised in 
this Review of the Personal History of Lord Bacon are 
given to the world. 



EAKLY YEARS, 13 



CHAPTER II 



EARLY YEARS. 



1561. 
Jan. 22. 



1. Sweet to the eye and to the heart is the face of II. 1 
Francis Bacon as a child. Born among the courtly 
glories of York House, nursed on the green slopes and 
in the leafy woods of G-orhambury ; now playing with 
the daisies and forget-me-nots, now with the mace and 
seals ; one day culling posies with the gardener or 
coursing after the pigeons (which he liked, particularly 
in a pie), the next day paying his pretty wee compli- 
ments to the Queen ; he grows up into his teens a grave 
yet sunny boy ; on this side of his mind in love with 
nature, on that side in love with art. Every tale told 
of this plaything of the court wins on the imagination : 
whether he hunts the echo in St. James's Park, or eyes 
the juggler and detects his trick, or lisps wise saws to 
the Queen and becomes her young Lord Keeper of ten. 
Frail in health, as the sons of old men mostly are, his 
father's gout and stone, of which he will feel the twinge 
and fire to his dying day, only chain him to his garden 

1. Sir Amias Paulett's Despatches in the Cott. MSS., Calig. E. vii. 3, 8, 16, 
31, 57; Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon, Lambeth MSS. 651, fol. 54; Bacon to 
Lady Paulett, Lambeth MSS. 649, fol. 214, 



14 FRANCIS BACON. 

n. 1. or his desk. When thirteen years of age he goes to 
read books under Whitgift at Cambridge ; when sixteen 
to read men under Paulett in France. If he is young, 
he is still more sage. A native grace of soul keeps off 
from him the rust of the cloister no less than the stain 
of the world. As Cambridge fails to dry him into 
Broughton, Paris and Poictiers fail to melt him into 
Montjoy. The perils he escapes are grave ; the three 

1577. years spent under Whitgift's hard, cold eye being no 
less full of intellectual snares than are the three years 
spent in the voluptuous court of Henri Trois, among 
the dames and courtiers of France, of moral snares. 
In the train of Sir Amias Paulett, he rides at seven- 
teen with that throng of nobles who attend the King 
and the Queen-Mother down to Blois, to Tours, to 
Poictiers ; mixes with the fair women on whose bright 
eyes the Queen relies for her success, even more than on 
her regiments and fleets ; glides in and through the hos- 
tile camps, observes the Catholic and Huguenot intrigues, 
and sees the great men of either court make love and 
war. But Lady Paulett, kind to him as a mother, watches 
over his steps with care and love, — a kindness he remem- 
bers and repays to the good lady, and to her kin, in later 
years. For him the d'Agelles sing their songs, the Tos- 
seuses twine their curls in vain. 

2. No one lapse is known to have blurred the beauty 
of his youth. No rush of mad young blood ever drives 

2. Sylva Sylvarum, x. 946, 986. 



PUEITY OF HIS YOUTH. 15 

him into brawls. To men of less temper and generosity II. 2. 
than his own — to Devereux and Montjoy, to Percy and 
Yere, to Sackville and Bruce — he leaves the glory of 
Calais sands and Marylebone Park. If he be weak on 
the score of dress and pomp ; if he dote like a young 
girl on flowers, on scents, on gay colors, on the trappings 
of a horse, the ins and outs of a garden, the furniture of 
a room ; he neither drinks nor games, nor runs wild and 
loose in love. Armed with the most winning ways, the 
most glozing lip at court, he hurts no husband's peace, 
he drags no woman's name into the mire. He seeks no 
victories like those of Essex ; he burns no shame like 
Raleigh into the cheek of one he loves. No Lady Rich, 
as in Sydney's immortal line, has cause 

To blush when Tie is named. 

When the passions fan out in most men, poetry flowers 
out in him. Old when a child, he seems to grow younger 
as he grows in years. Yet with all his wisdom he is not 
too wise to be a dreamer of dreams ; for while busy with 
his books in Paris he gives ear to a ghostly intimation of 
his father's death. All his pores lie open to external na- 
ture. Birds and flowers delight his eye ; his pulse beats 
quick at the sight of a fine horse, a ship in full sail, a soft 
sweep of country ; everything holy, innocent, and gay acts 
on his spirits like wine on a strong man's blood. Joyous, 
helpful, swift to do good, slow to think evil, he leaves on 
every one who meets him a sense of friendliness, of peace 
and power. The serenity of his spirit keeps his intellect 



16 * FKANCIS BACON. 

II. 2. bright, his affections warm ; and just as he had left the 
halls of Trinity with his mind unwarped, so he now, when 
duty calls him from France, quits the galleries of the 
Louvre and St. Cloud with his morals pure. 

1579. 3. At the age of eighteen he fronts the world. The 
staff of his house being broken, as the dream had told 
him, he hies home from France to Lady Bacon's side. 
The Lord Keeper had not been rich, and his lands have 
passed to his son by a former wife. Ann Lady Bacon is 
left a young widow with two sons, Anthony and Francis, 
a meek, brave heart, and a slender fortune ; a little family 
of three persons, who make up in love for each other all 
that they lack in pelf. Lady Ann, the Olympia Morata 
of Elizabeth's court, is one of five sisters, daughters of that 
fine old scholar who drugged King Edward with Latin 
verse, Sir Anthony Cook of Giddy Hall in Essex ; all the 
five pious and learned as so many Muses, but unlike the 
Muses all made happy wives ; Mildred by Lord Burghley, 
Ann by the late Lord Keeper, Katharine by Sir Henry 
Killigrew, Elizabeth first by Sir Thomas Hoby and next by 
John Lord Russell, Margaret, the youngest sister of the 
five, by Sir Ralph Rowlet. So that Francis claims through 
his mother close cousinry with Sir Robert Cecil, with Eliz- 
abeth and Anne Russell, with the witty and licentious race 
of Killigrews, and with the future statesman and diploma- 

3. Lord Bacon to Burghley, Lansdowne MSS., xliii. 48; Lady Bacon to An- 
thony Bacon, Lambeth MSS. 648, 649, 650. The portrait of Lady Bacon by 
Nathaniel is at Gorhambury. 



LADY ANN BAGON. IT 

tist Sir Edward Hoby. Lady Ann is deep in Greek and n. 3. 

in divinity; her translation of Jewell's "Apology" is * 

1579. 
praised by the best critics, and has been printed for pub- 
lic use by orders from the Archbishop of Canterbury ; yet 
the good mother is not more at home with Plato and 
Gregory than among her herbs, her game, her stewpans, 
and her vats of ale. Nathaniel Bacon, with hearty humor 
and a play upon her name and habits, has made a portrait 
of her dressed as a cook and standing in a litter of dead 
game. She is very pious : in the words of her son " a 
Saint of God." Not quite a Puritan herself, she feels a 
soft and womanish sympathy for men who live the gospel 
they proclaim ; brings up her sons in charity with all 
Protestant creeds ; hears the preachers with profit ; and, 
without any air of patronage and protection towards 
them, speaks to her great kinsman, the Lord Treasurer, 
the word which spoken in season is quick to save. A 
bright, keen, motherly lady ; apt, as good women are, to 
give advice. To her, her famous children are always two 
little boys, who need to be corrected, physicked, and fed : 
when they are forty years old, and filled with all knowl- 
edge of men and books, she not only sends them game 
from her own larder and strong beer from her own casks, 
having no great faith in other people's work, but lectures 
them on what they shall eat and drink, when they shall 
purge or let blood, how far they may .ride or walk or drive 
in a coach, when they may safely eat supper, and at what 
hour in the morning they shall rise from bed. 

B 



3579. 



18 FRANCIS BACON. 

II. 4. 4. Lady Ann lives at Gorhambury. Anthony is abroad, 
now in France, now in Italy, now in Navarre, conning 
the languages and manners, the politics and events, of 
these famous lands. Francis falls to his terms at Gray's 
Inn, seeks the help of his great kinsman Burghley, and 
finds a seat in the House of Commons for himself at the 
age of twenty-three. 
1580. A letter, now to be put in type, will show that he has 
juiy n. fi xe( j hj s tent at Gray's Inn as early as the summer of 
1580, a few months after his nineteenth year. This note 
is curious as the earliest known piece of writing from his 
hand, and as a sample of his boyish style. Macaulay 
dwells on the change from his early to his later manner ; 
the statuesque severity of that of his youth compared 
against the glow, the imagery, the wit, the license, and 
the color of that of his later time. At twenty Mino, at 
forty he had grown into Raffaelle. How grave, how cold 
this message to Mr. Wylie ! 

Bacon to Mr. Wylie. 

From Gray's Inn, 11 of July, 1580. 

Mr. Wylie, — 
This very afternoon, giving date to these letters of 
mine, I received yours by the hands of Mr. Wimbanke, 
and to the which I thought convenient not only to make 
answer, but also therein to make speed, lest, upon supposi- 
tion that the two letters enclosed were, according to their 

4. Gray's Inn Reg., cited in Craik's Bacon, i. 12; Bacon to Wylie, July 11, 
1580, in Lambeth MS.S. 647, fol. 14. 



LETTEE TO MK. WYLIE. 19 

directions, delivered, you should commit any error, either II. 4. 
in withholding your letters so much the longer when per- 
adventure they mought be looked for, or in not withhold- 
ing to make mention of these former letters in any other 
of a latter despatch. The considerations that moved me 
to stay the letters from receipt, whether they be in respect 
that I take this course to be needless or insufficient or 
likely to lead to more inconvenience otherwise than to 
do good, as it is meant in some such, they are that they 
prevail with my simple discretion, which you have put in 
trust in ordering the matter to persuade me to do as I 
have done. 

My trust and desire likewise is that you will report (?) 
and satisfy yourself upon that which seemeth good to me 
herein, being most privy to the circumstances of the mat- 
ter, and tendering my brother's orders as I ought, and 
not being misaffected to you neither, by those at whom 
you glance, while I know whom you mean. I know like- 
wise that you mean amiss ; for I am able, upon knowl- 
edge, to acquit them from being toward [in ?] this mat- 
ter. For mine own part, truly, Mr. Wylie, I never took 
it that your joining in company and travel with my 
brother proceeded not only of good will in you, but also 
of his motion, and that your mind was always rather by 
desert than pretence of friendship to earn thanks than 
to win them. Neither would I say this much to you, 
if I would shrink to say it in any place where the con- 
trary was inferred : and in that I rectified my brother of 
this matter being delivered unto me for truth. I had 



1580. 

July. 



20 FRANCIS BACON. 

II. 4. this consideration that among friends more advertise- 
ments are profitable than true. My request to you is, 
that you will continue and proceed in your good mind 
towards my brother's well-doing ; and although he him- 
self can best both judge and consider of it, yet I dare say 
withall that his friends will not be unthankful to miscon- 
strue it, but ready to acknowledge it upon his liking. 
And as for this matter, as you take no knowledge at all 
of it, I will undertake it upon my knowledge that it 
shall be the better choice. Thus betake I you to the 
Lord. 

Your very friend, 

Fr. Bacon. 

1585. Though he enters the House of Commons, he finds no 
Nov. 2a p U ]3]j c wor k. Not that Burghley pets and lures him only 
to chain him fast ; the great Protestant minister is a man 
too high and noble for such a part, nor can Englishmen 
afford to soil his fame. Bacon, at least, never dreams 
that his uncle plays him false. That he does not push 
him with all his might is true : but this may be, not be- 
cause he dreads in him a rival to his son, as is often said, 
so much as because, being old and timid, fearful of ad- 
venture and speculation, of risking those measures of 
Eeligion and State in which his name is forever bound 
up, lie dreads the daring and original genius of his neph- 
ew, apt, he may think, in his flush of youth and intellect- 
ual strength to dash at success, to fly at the nearest road, 
to bridle and ride the popular storm. 



KETURNED FOE MIDDLESEX. 21 

5. Rawley, Mallet, Montagu, and Lord Campbell have n. 5. 

each in turn slurred the ten or twelve years in which 

1585 
Bacon grew from a boy of nineteen into a man of thirty Nov ' 

or thirty-one, though in drama and instruction these 
years hold rank among the noblest of his life. The 
writers set him high on the stage for the first time in 
1592, when he is thirty-one. " In the parliaments which 
met in 1586 and 1588," says Lord Campbell, " he had 
been returned to the House of Commons ; but he does 
not seem to have made himself prominent by taking any 
decided part for or against the Crown." 

What is the truth ? In 1592 he is returned to par- 
liament for Middlesex, the most wealthy, liberal, indepen- 
dent shire in England, — the West Riding of the time 
and of long succeeding times. He is young, poor, out 
of place. He is even out of favor, since his uncle has 
turned from the young reformer his powerful face. Hav- 
ing neither rood of land nor hope of inheritance within 
the shire, the squires and freeholders of Middlesex choose 
him. Why, and how ? Did penniless genius ever start 
in life by winning the first constituency in the realm ? 
Burke had to woo the electors of Wendover before he 
dreamt of Bristol. Pitt began with Appleby, and only 
at his height of power won the University of Cambridge. 
Brougham had suffered defeat at Liverpool, and had 
been glad to sit for Knaresborough, ere he tried to con- 
quer the West Riding. So with Bacon. Service and 
success, of which the writers have never heard, lifted 

5. Willis, Notitia Parliamentaria, iii. 101, 113, 121; D'Ewes, 337. 



1585. 

Nov. 



22 FRANCIS BACON. 

II 5. him to the height of Middlesex. When he rose at Brent- 
ford in 1592, he spoke to freeholders who knew his name 
and voice, not only as one of the most youthful, but as 
one of the most daring and effective members of a for- 
mer House. 

Bacon had, indeed, served in Parliament prior even 
to the sessions of 1586 and 1588. He entered the House 
of Commons in 1585, when he was only twenty-four. 
He then sat for Melcombe. In the Parliament of 1586 
he sat for Taunton, and in that of 1588 for Liverpool. 

6. These three sessions not stirring! The author of 
Tom Jones has a passage on the advantage of a writer 
knowing his subject; the great humorist should have 
told us of the ease and comfort which a writer finds in 
not knowing his subject. Will not his soul be more at 
peace ? No truth will curb the freedom of his judg- 
ment — no fact interrupt the flow of his style. See how 
Hallam hesitates and halts ! He knows too much. Only 
your blind horse will leap into the chasm, or wait his 
death-gore from a horn of the bull. 

A month at books on any subject will not weight one 
much. A diplomatist used to say that when he had been 
four weeks in London he felt able to write a book on 
English life ; when he had been a year, he had doubts 
if he yet understood the whole of his theme ; when he 
had been ten years, he gave up the book in despair. 

Not stirring ! Why, the three sessions in which Bacon 

6. D'Ewes, 332, 439 ; Townshend, i. 29. 



1585. 

Nov. 



HIS EAKLY POPULAKITY. 23 

served his parliamentary apprenticeship, though slipped II. 6 
as void and waste by his biographers, abound in scenes 
of high and tragic conflict, — scenes in which he played 
an active and conspicuous part, and which colored and 
shaped for hirn the course of his political life. These 
three sessions had to save the liberties of England, the 
faith of nearly half of Europe. They crushed the Jes- 
uits, they founded the Defence Association, they sent out 
Raleigh to plant new States, they laid Mary on the bier 
at Fotheringay, they broke and punished the Romanist 
conspiracies, they shattered and dispersed the Invincible 
Armada ! 

7. Nor were these early Parliaments less bright in 
composition than brave in deed. On swearing the oaths 
as member for Melcombe, Bacon takes his seat on the 
same benches with the chief lights of law and govern- 
ment, — with Hatton and Bromley, Egerton and Wal- 
singham, — as well as near those younger glories of the 
Court, the poets and warriors to whom secretaries of 
state are but as clerks, with Sir Philip Sydney, Sir Wal- 
ter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Charles Blount, and 
hosts of others scarcely less renowned than these in love 
and war. 

Yet from the ranks of this group he leaps like fire 
into fame. Burke's spring was not so high, Pitt's pop- 
ularity was not so wide. At twenty-five he has won the 
ear of that fastidious House. Wit so radiant, thought so 

7. Not. Tarl., iii. 99, 107; Bacon's Essays, No. 3. 



1585. 

Nov. 



24 FKANCIS BACON. 

I. 7. fresh, and lore so prompt, had not before, and have never 
since, been heard within those famous walls. Yet his 
hold on the men of his generation is due less to an intel- 
lectual than to a moral cause. They trust him, for he 
represents what is best in each. The slave of Whitgift, 
the dupe of Brown, can each give ear to a churchman 
who seeks reform of the church, a lawyer eager to amend 
the law, a friend of the Crown who pleads against feudal 
privileges and unpopular powers. When a colleague pro- 
poses some change in the church which would destroy it, 
he replies to him : " Sir, the subject we talk of is the 
eye of England ; if there be a speck or two in the eye, 
we endeavor to take them off; he would be a strange ocu- 
list who would pull out the eye." Of no sect, he repre- 
sents in Parliament the patriotic spirit of all the sects. 
Not himself a Puritan, he pleads with Hastings for re- 
form ; not a Roman Catholic, he lifts his voice against 
persecution for concerns of faith ; not a courtier, he votes 
with Cecil for supplies. In one word, he is English. To 
sustain the Queen in her great strife with Spain, to 
guard the Church from abuse and from destruction, are 
as much his objects as to break the bonds of science and 
lead inquiry back from clouds to earth. When he strikes 
at corruptions in the State, when he resists the usurpa- 
tions of the Peers, when he saps the privileges of the 
Crown, he speaks in the name of English progress and 
English strength. He fights for reform of the law, for 
increase of tillage, for union with the Scots, for planta- 
tions in Ulster, for discovery and defence in Virginia, 



1585. 

Nov. 



ASPECT OF THE TIMES. 25 

for free Parliaments and for ample grants, because he II. 7. 
sees that increase, union, freedom, and a rich execu 
tive are each and all essential to the growth and grand 
eur of the realm. 

8. How he appears in outward grace and aspect 
among these courtly and martial contemporaries, the 
miniature by Hilyard helps us to conceive. Slight in 
build, rosy and round in flesh, dight in a sumptuous suit ; 
the head well-set, erect, and framed in a thick starched 
fence of frill ; a bloom of study and of travel on the fat, 
girlish face, which looks far younger than his years ; the 
hat and feather tossed aside from the broad, white brow, 
over which crisps and curls a mane of dark, soft hair ; an 
English nose, firm, open, straight ; mouth delicate and 
small, — a lady's or a jester's mouth, — a thousand pranks 
and humors, quibbles, whims, and laughters lurking in 
its twinkling, tremulous lines : — such is Francis Bacon 
at the age of twenty-four. 

9. No session ever met under darker skies than that 1586. 
of 1586. Babington's conspiracy has just exploded; 0ct29 ' 
fleets are arming in Cadiz bay; money and men are 
ready in Rome, in Naples, in Leghorn, for a crusade 
against the heretics ; Parsons is hounding on the Pope, 
Sixtus hounding on Philip ; in the Tagus, at the Groyne, 

8. Hilyard's miniature is in the possession of Adair Hawkins, Esq., of Great 
Marlborough Street. 

9. Dom. Papers of Queen Eliz., ccxxii. ; Andreas Philopatri ad Elizabeth® 
Keginas Angliae edictum responsio; Toulmin's History of Taunton, 865. 

2 



26 FKANCIS BACON. 

1L 9. in the cities of Brabant and Flanders, armaments wait 
but a word to cross over into Kent, to seat Mary Queen 

Oct 29 °f Scots on the throne, to reduce England to a fief of the 
Church. England flushes with heroic pride. London, 
Dover, Portsmouth swarm with soldiers ; drums are roll- 
ing in every hamlet, yeomen mustering in the market- 
places of every shire. But no part of England burns 
with more fervent heat than the western counties, 
nor in these counties than the town of Taunton. 
Taunton is the seat of trade and manufacture, — a 
Manchester of a milder clime ; next to Bristol the rich- 
est town between the Severn and the Scilly Isles ; next 
to London the most patriotic town between the Irish 
Sea and Dover Straits. In the day when everything dear 
to man appears to be at stake, this populous and enter- 
prising town sends Bacon to Westminster to speak in its 
name and give its vote. 

10. The writs having gone out while the ruffians who 
prated of friendship and sentiment are on trial for their 
crimes, the passionate patriotism of the land storms up, 
too strong for Burghley to breast, too strong for Elizabeth 
herself to ride. When the Peers and Commoners meet, 
a cry goes up to the throne that Mary shall be brought 
to trial, and, on proof of her guilt, shall be put to death. 
In this stern prayer the burgess for Taunton, tolerant as 
he is of mere opinion, joins. The Crown dares not 
refuse. Menaced on every side, England can give no 

10. State Trials, i. 1127-1162; D'Ewes, 393. 



OUTCRY AGAINST MARY. 27 

answer to the threats of invasion save an open trial and II. 10 
solemn execution of the Queen of Scots. 



11. What to do with Mary had been a dismal question 
for honest men since the day when she had first sought 
refuge in Carlisle from her licentious barons and her faith- 
less son. In her room at Chartley, guarded by the old 
moat, shut in with her women and her priests, she had 
scared the Protestant imagination more than either the 
Kaiser in Vienna or the Pope in Rome. Her position 
was, indeed, most strange : to-day a prisoner, to-morrow 
she might become a queen. She had no need to make a 
party, to risk her head, in order to win her game. She 
had only to live : certain, as fall will follow spring, of 
rising one day from her bed of durance to find the necks 
of her enemies beneath her feet. An accident, a crime, 
might give her, any hour, the crown. A stumbling jen- 
net, an unwholesome meal, a prick of Babington's knife, 
a snap of Salisbury's dagg, might take away the life 
which alone stood between her and the English crown. 

Put on trial, her complicity proved, her cousin would 
still have spared her life. But the Burghleys, Davisons, 
and Pauletts were in no position to treat this profligate 
woman with the leonine clemency of the Queen. To 
Elizabeth she was, indeed, a danger and a snare ; but to 
the Protestant gentleman who loved his religion and his 



11. Dom. Papers of Eliz., cxciv.; D'Ewes, 393-410; Davison to Walsing- 
ham, Oct. 10, 1586, in the State Paper Office; Burghley to Davison, Nov. 24, 
1586, S. P. 0. 



1586. 

Oct. 29. 



28 FEANCIS BACON. 

n. 11. country, her removal or succession was a question of life 
or death. She could neither break Elizabeth on the 

Oct 29 wnee l nor roas ^ her at the stake ; for, unless a Spanish 
force should succeed in seating her on the throne, her 
day of evil could not come until the Queen was safe from 
the revenge of King and Pope. But what prelate on the 
bench, what councillor at the board, what magistrate in 
his shire, would feel his head safe on his spine should 
the trumpets bray the accession of Mary to the English 
throne? They had seen another Mary. Old men recalled 
the day when Latimer perished. Half the citizens of 
London could tell how Rogers had gone to heaven in 
the Smithfield fires. All England shook with news of 
the more recent massacres of Paris, — massacres solemnly 
approved and commemorated in Rome as services to God. 
Men firm in their own faith, loyal to their own Queen, 
pretended no pity for a woman who to Helen's loveliness 
of person added more than Helen's dissoluteness of mind. 
They saw in Mary a wife who had married three hus- 
bands and was eager to marry more. They saw in her 
the murderess of Darnley, the destroyer of the Kirk. 
They saw in her a pretender to the English crown, in 
whose name Sixtus had resumed the kingdom, and Philip 
was preparing to lay it waste. Was such a woman to 
live and become their Queen ? 

Had Mary refrained from plots, content to bide her 
time, the peril of such a future would have been hard 
to meet ; but when her complicity in Babington's treason 
was proved in court, then Davison urged, and the House 



Feb. 8. 



ELIZABETH CALUMNIATED. 29 

of Commons demanded by petition, that for the security II. 11. 
of life, liberty, and true religion in time to come, the 
prisoner of Fotheringay should suffer the just sentence " 

of the law. 

12. The Queen holds out. A grand committee, of Nov. 12. 
which Bacon is a member, goes into the presence, and 

the lords spiritual and temporal, the knight and squire, 
the lawyer and goldsmith, kneeling together at her feet, 
demand that the national will shall be done, — that the 
Protestant faith shall be saved. She will not hear them. 
When the deed is done that makes England free, — 1587. 
done by Davison's command if not by the Queen's, — 
she casts the courageous minister from power ; nor will 
she to her dying day consent to see his face or hear his 
name. There ought to be no doubt of the sincerity of 
her grief. 

13. The letters which have been printed in more re- 
cent times, suggesting that Elizabeth, while affecting to 
withhold her consent to Mary's death, instigated Pau- 
lett to commit a private murder, are odious and clumsy 
literary forgeries. These letters have been adopted by 
Lingard, and have half imposed on the cautious Hal- 
lam. Yet the originals are nowhere to be found, the 
name of the pretended discoverer of them is unknown, 



12. Nicholas, Life of Davison, 1823; D'Ewes, 394-400; Camden, Ann. 1586. 

13. Comp. Hallam, Hist, of Eng., i. 159 n. ; Lingard, viii. 282; with a Note in 
Charles Knight's Hist, of Eng., iii. 205. 



30 FEANCIS BACON. 

H. 13. and they have never been seen by and competent or 
reputable man ! The circumstances of ' their publica- 

1587 

Feb 8. ^ on su gg es * forgery for a political end, while the style 
and statement of the letters prove them to be inven- 
tions of a later time. The alleged discovery of these 
papers, so damaging to the English Church and so fatal 
to the Protestant Queen, was made by partisans of the 
Papist Pretender in the hottest days of the Jacobite feud. 
The dates, the names, the facts adduced, establish the 
comparatively recent fraud. 

The Queen, slow to shed blood, meant to save Mary 
from the block ; but her people and her parliament, free 
from her woman's weakness and her ties of blood, re- 
quired that high political justice should be done. Mary 
was the first and worst of all their foes ; the princes 
of Spain and Italy were her soldiers, the Babingtons 
and Salisburys of London her assassins. England could 
only meet the league of Kaiser, Pope, and King by 
snatching away their flag. Mary gone, the invaders 
were without a cause, the conspirators without a cry. 
Who shall say what might have chanced had Mary been 
alive, when the Duke of Medina Sidonia rode off the 
Lizard, to excite a rising in the western shires, or even 

fc to divide the loyalty and check the courage of the Eng- 
lish fleet. 

14. Bacon's fame as a patriot, as an orator, is in these 

14. Phillippes to Davison, Oct. 5, 1586, S. P. 0. In citing those State Papers 
from which a main portion of the following narrative will be derived, I must 



1587. 
Feb. 8. 



SITS FOR LIVERPOOL. 31 

transactions formed and fixed. To know him is to be II. 14. 
happy; to have been at school with him, distinguished. 
William Phillippes, wanting a place under Davison, for 
his son, thinks it enough to remind the great minister 
that his boy had been trained with the young member 
for Taunton. 

15. Years hurry past. The Armada comes and goes. 1589, 
While the watch-fires are yet burning on the cliffs, the Feb,4# 
wrecks of a hundred keels yet tossing in the foam from 
Devon to Caithness, Parliament meets. Bacon now sits 
for Liverpool. Danger is past ; the Queen has been to 
thank God at St. Paul's, and a merry Christmas has 
been kept in hall and cottage, many a spar washed up 
from the wrecks of the Spanish fleet crackling in the 
festive fires. 

In this new session Bacon serves on the most impor- 
tant committees, speaks on the most important bills : 
now standing for the privileges of the House of Com- 
mons, now assaulting the Royal purveyors, now denounc- 
ing the forestallers, regrators, and engrossers. The 
great debates of this year occur on subsidies and grants. 

express my obligations to Sir John Romilly, Master of the Rolls, for the facili- 
ties which, during many years, he has given to my researches among the public 
documents of which he has the legal charge. My thanks are no less due to 
Lord Stanley and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, for the courtesy with which, 
when Secretaries of State, they listened to my proposals for certain changes in 
the State Paper Office favorable to historical students, and for the promptitude 
with which they consented to remove restrictions that had made any general 
and critical study of the State Papers next to impossible. 

15. Not. Pari., iii. 121; D'Ewes, 430-439; Statutes of the Realm, 31 Eliz. 
c. 15. 



1589 
Feb. 4 



32 FRANCIS BACON. 

II. 15. Hatton proposes two subsidies and four fifteenths and 
tenths ; to which Bacon, whose soul is in the patriotic 
tug, agrees : he moves, however, to insert in the bill a 
clause explaining that these grants are extraordinary and 
exceptional, meant for the war, and only for the war. 
To this the Queen objects, as fettering her future acts : 
enough for the squires to pronounce their Yea or Nay. 
The squires stand firm. Many men support what one 
man dares. After much debate, the Crown proposes to 
lay the bill, with Bacon's amendments to it, before the 
Learned Counsel ; to which the House of Commons, 
insisting first that the author of the amendments shall 
be present at the sittings of that learned board, consents. 
Under his soft, persuasive tact, the interests of the sov- 
ereign are reconciled with the interests of her people, 
and the bill is passed to the satisfaction of Queen and 
Commons. Power and fame now seem to be in his 
grasp. Elizabeth sends for him to the palace ; the elec- 
tors of Middlesex cast their eyes upon him ; and, when 
parliament meets again, he will represent the wealth and 
courage of that great constituency. From the session 
of 1589 dates his firm ascendency in the House of Com- 
mons. 

16. Lady Bacon and her sons are poor. Anthony, the 
loving and beloved, with whom Francis had been bred 

16. Wotten's Baronetage, edited by Johnson and Timber, i. 8; Patent Rolls, 
16 Eliz., par. 6, mem. 3; Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon, Lamb. MSS. 648, 106, 
650, 75, 651, 54 ; Lady Bacon to her brothers Francis and Anthony Bacon, Lamb. 
MSS. 648, fol. 10. 



1591. 



NICHOLAS BACON. 33 

at Cambridge and in France, has now come home. II. 16. 
His health, bad at the best, has broken in the sonth ; 
so he lies for a long time in bed or on a couch at his 
brother's rooms in Gray's Inn Square. The two young 
fellows have little money and expensive ways. Anthony, 
as the elder brother, owns a seat at Redburn, in Hert- 
fordshire, with a few farms lying round it. Gorham- 
bury, too, will be his when Lady Bacon dies. But the 
rents fall far below his needs, not to speak of the needs 
of his brother, who is now prominent at court, a leader 
in the House of Commons, and a candidate for the 
glory of representing in parliament the metropolitan 
shire. Their half-brother Sir Nicholas, who inherits Red- 
grave and the broad Suffolk acres left by the Lord 
Keeper, a man with penurious habits and a swarm of 
children, deems his own nine sons and three daughters 
burden enough, without having to pinch for the off- 
spring of Lady Ann. When he marries a daughter they 
may get an invitation to Redgrave ; but his brotherly 
hospitalities end with the feast. Nathaniel may paint 
their portraits and present them with game on canvas, 
but the artist can do nothing to fill their mouths. 
Edward has a lease from the Crown of Twickenham 
Park, a delightful place on the river, of which Francis 
makes a home. Lady Ann starves herself at Gorham- 
bury that she may send to Gray's Inn ale from her 
cellar, pigeons from her dovecote, fowls from her farm- 
yard ; gifts which she seasons with a good deal of 
motherly love and not a little of her best motherly ad- 



34 FEANCIS BACON. 

II. 16. vice. The young men take the love and leave the ad- 
vice, as young men will. Like Buckhurst, Herbert, 
and the race of gay cavaliers, while waiting for better 
days and brighter fortunes, they relieve their wants by 
help of the Lombards and Jews. 



17. Francis looks for an opening to mend their means. 
1592. A rich alderman dies, leaving his son a ward. The 
guardianship of a Queen's ward is often a profitable toil, 
and the care of Hayward's son is in Burghley's gift. 
Francis urges Lady Ann to apply to her sister's hus- 
band for this lucrative trust. 



Feb. 18. 



Bacon to Lady Bacon. 

From my Lodgings, Feb. 18, 1591-2. 

Madam, — 
Alderman Hayward is deceased this night. His eld- 
est son is fallen ward. My Lord Treasurer doth not 
for the most part hastily dispose of wards. It were 
worth the obtaining, if it were but in respect of the 
widow, who is a gentlewoman much recommended. 
Your ladyship hath never had any ward. If, my Lady, 
it were too early for my brother to be gone with a suit 
to my Lord before he had seen his Lordship, and, for 
me, if I at this time procure (?) my Lord to be my 
friend with the Queen, it may please your ladyship to 
move my Lord, and to promise to be thankful to any 

17. Lambeth MSS. 648, fol. 6, 106, 110. 



1592. 

Feb. 18. 



LADY BACON. 35 

other my Lord oweth pleasure unto. There should be II. 17 
no time lost therein. And so I most humbly take my 
leave. 

Your Ladyship's most obedient son, 

Fr. Bacon. 

My Lord (Lord Burghley) is a leal friend to him 
with the Queen ; a little slow, as his nature is, but 
honest, sage, and sure. While waiting for a post, and 
only that of Attorney-General or Solicitor-General will 
serve his turn, the young barrister fags at his books ; 
framing in his mind a magnificent scheme for reducing 
and codifying the whole body of English law, as well 
as shaping his more colossal plans for re-constituting 
the whole round of the sciences. Like the ways of all 
deep dreamers, his habits are odd, and vex Lady Ann's 
affectionate and methodical heart. The boy sits up 
late of nights, drinks his ale-posset to make him sleep, 
starts out of bed ere it is light, or may be, as the 
whimsy takes him, lolls and dreams till noon, musing, 
says the good lady, with loving pity, on — she knows 
not what ! Her own round of duty lies in saying her 
morning and evening prayers, in hearing nine or ten 
sermons in the week, in caring for her kitchen and 
hen-roost, in physicking herself, her maids, and her 
tenants, in making the rascals who would cheat her 
pay their rent, and in loving and counselling her two 
careless boys. Dear, admirable soul ! How human and 
how humorous, too, the picture of this good mother, 



36 FRANCIS BACON. 

II. 17. warm in her affections, scolding for us our broad-browed 
awful Verulam ! 



1592. 
May 24. 



Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. 

Gorhambury, 24th May, 1592. 

Grace and health. That you increase in amending I 
am glad. God continue it every way. "When you cease 
of your prescribed diet, you had need I think to be very 
wary both of your sudden change of quantity and of sea- 
son of your feeding, specially suppers late or full ; procure 
rest in convenient time, it helpeth much to digestion. I 
verily think your brother's weak stomach to digest hath 
been much caused and confirmed by untimely going to 
bed, and then musing, I know not what, when he should 
sleep, and then, in consequence, by late rising and long 
lying in bed, whereby his men are made slothful and him- 
self continually sickly. But my sons haste not to hearken 
to their mother's good counsel in time to prevent. The 
Lord our heavenly Father heal and bless you both, as His 
sons in Christ Jesus ! 

I promise you, touching your coach, if it be so to your 
contentation, it was not wisdom to have it seen and known 
at the Court. You shall be so much pressed to lend, and 
your man for gain so ready to agree, that the discom- 
modity thereof will be as much as the commodity. I 
would your health had been such as you needed not to 
have provided a coach but for a wife ; but the will of God 
be done. You were best to excuse you by me, that I 



LADY BACON. 37 

have desired the use of it, because, as I feel it too true, II. 17. 
my going is almost spent, and must be fain to be bold 
with you. It is like Robert Bailey and his sons have Ma ^ 
been to seek some commodity of you ; the father hath 
been but an ill tenant to the wood, and a wayward payer, 
and hath forfeited his bond, which I intend not to let slip ; 
his son a dissolute young man, and both of them crafty. 
Likewise young Carpenter may sue to be your man. Be 
not hasty ; you shall find such young men proud and bold, 
and of no service, but charge and discredit. Be advised. 
Overshoot not yourself undiscreetly. I tell you, plain folk 
in appearance will quickly cumber one here, and they will 
all seek to abuse your want of experience by so long ab- 
sence. Be not hasty, but understand well first your own 
state. There was never less kindness in tenants com- 
monly than now. Farewell in Christ. 

Let not your men see my letters. I write to you, and 
not to them. 

Your mother, 

A. Bacon. 

This coach which the two brothers, both of them sick, 
both racked with gout and ague, have set up, weighs 
heavily on her spirits. Again and again she returns 
to the charge. " I like not your lending it to any 
lord or lady. It was not well it was so soon seen 
at court. Toll your brother, I counsel you to send it 
no more. What had my Lady Shrewsbury to borrow 
your coach ? " 



1593. 
Feb. 19. 



38 FRANCIS BACON. 

II. 18. 18. If the post of orator of the House of Commons is 
no easy one to win, it is one more difficult to hold. Wit, 
sense, readiness, repartee, power, patience, mastery of 
men and books, are parts of the round of faculties and 
acquirements for one who is to seize the direction and 
sway the votes of an English House of Commons. At 
thirty- two, when Bacon, in the session of 1593, takes his 
seat for Middlesex, he finds on the benches right and 
left of him men the most .renowned in English story. 
Coke is Speaker ; Cecil leads for the Crown ; Raleigh 
and Yere sit nigh him ; Fulk Greville, the friend of 
Sydney, John Fortescue, Lawrence Hyde, Henry Yelver- 
ton, Edward Dyer, Henry Montagu, rival speakers and 
lawyers, are but six of a conspicuous crowd. The war 
continues, and events look grave. Battalions crowd 
Dunkerque and Calais ; the flag of Leon and Castile 
flaps within sight of Dover-pier ; London stands under 
arms ; troops hurry for Flanders, Dublin, and Kinsale ; 
the Sussex founderies cast guns ; and fort on fort rises 
along the coast from Margate to Penzance. Yet the 
war without is not more harassing than the disease 
within. London gasps with plague. No lute or tabor 
sounds from the tavern-porch ; no play draws dames and 
gallants to the Globe ; no pageant crowds the Thames 
with citizens and 'prentice boys. An order from the 
Lord Mayor puts down all games, — the bear-bait at 

18. Not. Pari., iii. 131 ; Council Keg., Jan. 28, July 19, 1593 ; Mem. of Men 
for Ireland, April 6, 1593, S. P. 0.; Elizabeth to Godolphin, May 9, 1593, S. P. 
0. ; Mem. by Burghley, May 9, 22, 31, 1593, S. P. 0. ; List of Parishes in Lon- 
don infested with Plague, Lamb. MSS. 648, fol. 152. 



OPPOSES THE GOVERNMENT. 39 

Paris Garden, the sports of the inn-yards, the song and II. 18. 
jollity of the ale-clubs. Yet, in the midst of woe and 
death, the recruiting-sergeant beats to arms. Henri the Fe J 
Fourth, who has mounted the throne of France, pressed 
by the victorious Spaniards, calls for help, and levies are 
being raised for him in London and in places usually 
exempt from such a tax. 

While yielding the Queen's government support on her 
money-bills, the feeders of the war, Bacon forces on the 
topic of reform, and defeats an extraordinary attempt at 
dictation by the ministers of the Crown. 

19. The House has not sat a week — not yet proved its Feb. 26. 
returns — before he hints at his scheme for amending and 
condensing the whole body of English law. The House 
starts up. The tide might have come in from the Thames. 
Reform the code ! Bacon tells a House full of Queen's 
counsel, Queen's sergeants, and utter barristers, that laws 
are made to guard the rights of the people, not to feed 
the lawyers. The laws should be read by all, known to 
all. Put them into shape, inform them with philosophy, 
reduce them in bulk, give them into every man's hand. 
So runs his speech. A noble thought, — a need of every 
nation under the sun, — a task to be wrought at by him 
through a long life, — to be then left to successors, who, 
after revolutions and restorations, commissions and re- 



19. Townshend's Historical Collection, 60; Bacon's Works,, vii. 313; Les 
Aphorismes du Droit, traduits du Latin de Messire Francois Bacon,. Grand 
Chancelier d'Angleterre, par J. Baudoin, 1646. 



1593 
Feb 



40 FKANCIS BACON. 

11.19. ports, have it still in hand — undone! The plan, of 
which this fragment of a speech is the root, developed in 
his Maxims of the Law, and proposed as part of his great 
reform in the De Augmentis, has had more success abroad 
than it has found at home. It was universally read, and 
most of all in France. It was translated by Baudoin, and 
inscribed to Segrier, Chancellor of France. In that coun- 
try it has blossomed and come to fruit. But a French 
revolution alone had power to achieve this vast design 
against established things ; and the Code Napoleon is 
even now, in 1860, the sole embodiment of Bacon's 
thought. 

March. 20. Ten days later he gives a check to the Govern- 
ment, which brings down upon his head those censures 
of Burghley and Puckering which are said to have 
represented in fact, if not in word, the personal anger 
of the Queen. The story of this speech has been so 
told as to rob Bacon of all credit for his daring, the 
ministers of all reason for their wrath. 

Lord Campbell writes, that he votes, for the grants 
proposed by the Crown, but pleads for time in which 
the people shall be called to pay them ; that Burghley 
and Puckering bully and threaten him ; that he bows 
to this storm of indignation a penitential face. Lord 
Campbell pictures the young barrister as whining under 
the lash, kissing the rod that smites him, pledging the 
tears in his eyes that he will never in that way offend 
her Majesty again ! 

20. Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors, art. " Bacon " iii. 15. 



OPPOSES THE GOVERNMENT. 41 

21. The offence lies deeper than Lord Campbell II. 21. 
dreams : an offence of two parts ; one of which parts 

1593 

has wholly escaped his sight. 

J r ° March. 

The Government seeks from the House of Commons 
a very extraordinary grant of money. It is usual to 
ask for half a subsidy a year. Half a subsidy is ten 
per cent, — two shillings in the pound a year. Burgh- 
ley proposes to demand from the burgesses a double 
rate : one whole subsidy a year ; four shillings in the 
pound. So high a tax will not, he knows, be voted by 
the House, with all its eagerness for war, unless the 
whole authority of the Crown and Government can be 
brought to bear. He forms his plans. Drafting such 
a bill as he hopes may pass, he sends word to Mr. 
Speaker Coke that he must beat down, in the Queen's 
name, all such noisy members as shall presume to prate 
of things in Church and State. No idle threat, as 
Bromley and Wentworth find ; ere many days are gone 
Wentworth has talked himself into the Tower, Brom- 
ley into the Fleet. 

Burghley now asks the House to confer with the 
Peers on a grant for the Queen's service ; and a com- 
mittee goes up ; among them, in frill and feather, gown 
or sword, Yere, Raleigh, Greville, Hastings, Cecil, Bacon, 
and Coke. They hear the Lord Treasurer's words ; and 
the next day Cecil reports, in their name, to the Com- 



21. Inhibitions delivered to Coke from the Queen, Feb. 28, 1593, S. P. 0.; 
Message from Coke to the House of Commons, Feb. 28, 1593, S. P. 0.; Confes- 
sion of Laton, Feb. 1593, S. P. 0. 



42 FRANCIS BACON. 

II. 21. mons, that the Peers have decided for them what they 

shall give, and at what times: three subsidies in three 
1593. ' 

March. 7 ears ? — i° ur shillings in the pound each year. For 

them to hear is to obey. 

Knight and squire gaze at each other. Four shil- 
lings in the pound a year ! And the Commons robbed 
of even the credit of their own gifts ! Such a speech 
is resented as a slur on their patriotism, a curb on their 
debates. 

22. Who rises to warn the minister ? Is it the fiery 
Raleigh, the martial Yere ? Where sits the noisy Hast- 
ings, the sagacious G-reville, the turbulent Coke ? Not 
one of these flames up. Soldiers who have pushed 
through Parma's lines, advocates bronzed in cheek, and 
Puritans steeled in the fire of controversy, stare and 
wait. No marvel either. Not one of these men, in a 
plain, good cause, would have shrunk from a threat of 
Little Ease, or Beauchamp Tower. The difficulty is, 
to defend their right of making grants and subsidies 
without seeming to oppose a war on which the country 
has set its soul, and without showing to the hosts of 
home and foreign enemies a broken front. To the bill 
itself the capital objection is only one of form. Cecil 
counts on the heat for battle ; and to fight for the 
power of free taxation, against the passionate haste of 
the people for clash of pikes and roar of guns, needs 
courage of a lofty and peculiar kind. Coke may fear 

22. D'Ewes, 468-83. 



RESENTS INTERFERENCE OF THE PEERS. 43 

to offend the Queen, Raleigh to embolden the King of II. 22> 
Spain, Hastings to vex the musters and the fleet. Ba- 

, , 1593. 

con starts up. „ t 

x March. 

A few clear words declare that he does not mean to 
touch the grant. No man will grudge the funds to fit 
out ships and man the guns. But there he stops. To 
give is the prerogative of the people, — to dictate what 
they shall give is not the duty of the House of Peers. 
In framing this bill the Government, he says, has gone 
beyond its powers ; .and he counsels the Commons, in de- 
fence, to decline any further conferences with the Lords 
on a money-bill. From his vest he takes an Answer to 
the Lords, which he proposes shall be read, and if ap- 
proved, sent up. This Answer is referred to a committee 
of fifty-one. The committee cannot agree ; and return 
their commission to the House. Hot debates ensue. 
Burghley hides himself behind the Queen ; but even her 
august and sacred name appears to have lost its force. 
Broad lines are drawn, and the members fall into either 
camp. The courtiers stand with Cecil for continuing the 
conferences on the money-bill ; the reformers with Bacon 
for resisting this encroachment on the constitutional laws. 

Coke puts the question from the chair, — for a con- 
ference ; yea, or nay ? A hundred and twenty-eight gen- 
tlemen cry Yea. Two hundred and seventeen gentlemen 
cry Nay. 

23. A raid of Parma's pikes through Kent would 

23. Bacon to Burghley and to Puckering, Montagu, xii. 275, Notes E. E. 



44 FEANCIS BACON. 

IT. 23. have startled Burghley less than such a vote. It is the 
first great check he has ever known ; it stops the whole 

March macnmer y of legislation ; it covers himself, his measures, 
and his friends with public shame. He scolds his nephew ; 
he sets the Lord Keeper on to scold him. These func- 
tionaries threaten him with the Queen's ire ; but Bacon 
defends what the Knight for Middlesex has said and 
done. If words not used by him are put upon him, he 
will deny them ; if his words are misunderstood, he will 
explain them ; but to the sense of- his speech he must 
hold fast. How can he unsay the truth ? This is his 
apology and defence. If her Highness, as they urge, is 
angry with him, he shall grieve ; if she commands him 
into silence, he must obey ; but in thwarting this inva- 
sion of popular rights by the House of Peers, he has done 
no more than his duty to his Queen, his country, and his 
God. 

24. Though the progress of the bill is stopped, all sides 
agree that the fleet must be manned, — the musters 
armed. Raleigh starts a compromise. Flushed with his 
glorious voyage, red with spoil from the Santa Clara and 
the Madre de Dios, the adventurer burns to be again at 
sea, chasing the Spanish ships, or forcing the rivers of 
Guiana. Every day given to debate he grudges as lost 
to victory and revenge. To him, delay is disaster ; talk 
is treason. Vote the supplies, — send out the fleet, — 
dash at Cadiz or Malaga, — sweep the plantations, — snap 

24. Townshend, 67 ; D'Ewes, 488. 



1593. 
March. 



RALEIGH'S COMPROMISE. 45 

up galleon and carrack, — death to the yellow flag ! cries II. 24 
that impetuous soul. The members warm to his voice. 
Resolve, he says to confer with the Lords on the perils of 
the realm. Say no more about grants. Listen to what 
the Government may have to tell about the Papal bull 
and the Spanish fleet. When you have saved the point 
of form, vote the money-bill as you list. Well spoken, 
Raleigh ! Not a tongue cries Nay. 

25. Set free by this device to discuss their money-bill April, 
the Commons fall to work. Cecil stands to the old plan 
of three subsidies, to be paid in three years. Bacon, 
neither cowed nor penitent, rises once more to oppose 
the court ; not on the amount, which he approves, but 
on the time, which is, indeed, the essential point. He 
asks for six years in place of three ; in other words, for 
two shillings in the pound a year, in place of four. 
Even for the joy of smiting Spain, he cannot drain the 
sources of industry, seize the craftsman's tools, the farm- 
er's cider-press and milk-pans. Raleigh storms upon 
him. Will he starve the war ? Cecil smiles and cajoles. 
But Bacon, who has won the ear even of this warlike 
auditory, insists that time shall be given, and that the 
grants shall be described as exceptional and extraordi- 
nary. In the end, against the warmth of Raleigh and 
the wiles of Cecil, he compels the Government to meet 
his proposal half-way, to extend the period proposed 

25. Lords' Jour., ii. 184; D'Ewes, 493; Townshend, 72; Statutes, 35 Eliz., 
c. 13. 



46 FRANCIS BACON. 

II. 25. for the raising of these taxes a year (in other words, 
to take three shillings in the pound each year in 

April, place of four), and to insert a clause in the bill de- 
claring that the money is given solely for the war 
against Spain. 



CLAIMS TO BE SOLICIT OR-GENERAL. 47 



CHAPTER III 



THE EARL OF ESSEX. 



1593. 
Sept. 



1. Six months after this brush with the Government III. 1 
Bacon is a candidate for place. The Rolls are vacant, 
and the rise of Egerton must leave the post of Attorney 
void. Coke claims to succeed. Some at the bar and on 
the bench would prefer Bacon's rise to Coke's : each has 
his troop of friends ; and thus, at an early stage, begins 
that rivalry between these famous men which is to run 
through every phase of their careers, and only end with 
their lives. Coke gains his move, as is only just. Bacon's 
claim to the place left void by Coke, that of the Solicitor- 
General, is much more strong. Born at the bar and 
nursed on law, he has served to his profession an appren- 
ticeship of fourteen years. If Philosophy has been his 
Rachel, Law has been his Leah. A bencher and Reader 
of his Inn, he enjoys a good reputation in chambers 
and in the courts. The best judges at the bar approve 
his rise. Burghley and Cecil cautiously promote his suit, 
and Egerton presses it with a noble friendship on all who 
have power to help or harm. Yet in the end Thomas 
Fleming gets the post, a man only known to the world for 

1. Chron. Jurid., 177; Lane's Reports, 22. 



48 FRANCIS BACON. 

III. 1. having stood in Bacon's way, and to the profession for his 
singular and disastrous ruling in the case of Bates. 

1 593. 

Se t ' Bacon owes this loss of place to Robert Devereux, Earl 
of Essex : out of which cruel disappointment to him 
springs the charge of ingratitude to a patron, — treason 
to a friend. 

A plain history of events will show that the connection 
of Bacon with Essex was one of politics and business ; 
that it brought no advantages to Bacon, and imposed on 
him no obligations ; that it ceased by the Earl's own acts ; 
that personally and politically Essex separated himself 
from Bacon, not Bacon from, Essex ; that Bacon, in his 
efforts to save Essex while he believed him a true man, 
went the extremest lengths of chivalry ; and that, in act- 
ing against him when he proved himself a rebel and a 
traitor, he did no more than discharge his necessary duty 
to his country and his Queen. 

2. One of the nearest friends of Queen Elizabeth had 
been Catherine Carey, afterwards Lady Knollys, her cousin 
in the first degree of the Boleyn blood. They had been 
sisters' children, and had loved each other with more than 
sisters' love. Catherine had died young in years, and 
had been buried by her sovereign in Westminster Abbey 
with regal pomp. Essex was Catherine Carey's grand- 
son ; in everything but the name he was a grandson to 
the childless Queen. This tie of blood the slanderers of 

2. Craik's Romance of the Peerage, i. 5; Council Reg., April 13, 1589, April 
14, 1591, June 21, 1592. 



ELIZABETH'S LOVE FOE ESSEX.' 49 

her fame forget to state. Yet Essex and the two Careys III. 2. 
were her only male relations on her mother's side, as 
James of Scotland was her sole surviving kinsman of the _ ' ' 

° Sept. 

royal race. He had been born into her lap and into her 
heart. She loved him, too, for his father's sake ; Walter, 
Earl of Essex, having been a leal friend to her in those 
young days when friends were few and cold. As she 
seared into age, it pleased her eye to see the sons of her 
first stanch peers around her throne. She had made 
Hunsdon chamberlain : she meant to make Cecil Secre- 
tary of State. She had loved Sydney for his father's vir- 
tues ; she endured Essex in remembrance of his father's 
fate. She had indeed much to bear with and forgive. 
More profuse than generous, more rash than brave, he 
tried her affection by his petulance and brawls ; but she 
clung to the orphan boy with that clannish pride which 
she had always felt for her mother's kin. She loaded 
him with favors. His jerks and whims, so galling to the 
council and the court, amused the Queen as signs of the 
Boleyn blood. Her mother had them ; his mother has 
them. That she ever loved him more than a lady of 
sixty years may love her cousin's grandchild is a mon- 
strous lie. No woman can believe it : no man but a monk 
could have dreamt it. 

3. Yet this lie against chastity and womanhood has 

3. Elizabethan Anglise reginse, hseresim Calvinianam propugnantis, in catholi- 
oos sui regni edicturn, quod in alios quoque reipublicas Christiana principes 
contumelias continet indignissimas. Promulgatum Londini 29 Nov. 1591. Cum 
responsione ad singula capita: qua non tantum ssevitia et irapietas tarn iniqui 

3 D 



50 FEANCIS BACON. 

III. 3. been repeated from generation to generation for two hun- 
dred and sixty years. It oozed from the pen of Father 
sept. Parsons. It darkens the page of Lingard. Like most of 
the scandals against her, — her jealousy of the wives of 
Leicester, of Raleigh, of Essex even, — it came from those 
wifeless monks, men of the confessional and the boudoir, 
who had spent their nights in gloating with Sanchez 
through the material mysteries of love, and in warping 
the tenderness and faith of woman into the filthy philos- 
ophy of their own " Disputationes de Sancto Matrimonii 
Sacramento." Against such calumniators the Queen 
might appeal, like Marie Antoinette, to every woman's 
heart. Jealous of Lettice Knollys, of Bessie Throckmor- 
ton, of Frances Sydney ! Elizabeth was indeed vexed with 
them ; but had she not cause ? Had not each of these 
courtiers married, not only without her knowledge as 
their Queen, but without honesty or honor ? In secret, 
under circumstances of shame and guilt, Leicester had 
wedded her cousin's daughter Lettice. Would the head 
of any house be pleased with such a trick ? Raleigh had 
brought to shame a lady of her court, young, lovely, 
brave as ever bloomed on a hero's hearth ; yet the daugh- 
ter of a disloyal house, of one who had plotted against 
the Queen's crown and life. Could any prince in the 
world approve of such an act ? Essex himself, a member 
of her race, a descendant of Edward the Third, had mar- 
ried, in secret and against her will, a woman of inferior 

edicti, sed mendacia quoque et fraudes ac imposturse deteguntur et confutantur. 
Per D. Andreain Philopatrum. 1592. 



1593. 

Sept. 



ELIZABETH'S LOVE FOR ESSEX. 51 

birth, without beauty,, youth, or fortune, a widow, who in. 3 
took him on her way from the arms of a first husband 
into those of a third. What kinswoman would have 
smiled on such a match? 

Love for Essex warmer than that of an aged gentle- 
woman for a young and dashing kinsman would have 
been in her sin against nature not less than sin against 
nature's God. The letters of Catherine's grandson to 
the Queen, if bright with poetry, playfulness, and com- 
pliment, are, in tone and substance, dutiful and chaste. 
In the Queen's letters to him there is not a line she might 
not have written to a grandson of her own. 

4. She girt him with the fondness and with the fear of 
a mother. She never sent him from her side without a 
pang ; for she knew that he would knock his head against 
stone walls, that he would hurry brave men to a foolish 
end. Proud and high though his temper was, he could 
neither lead others to victory like Raleigh, nor defend his 
own face from harm like Montjoy. If he sailed for Cadiz 
with Nottingham and Raleigh to slack his fire, the Queen's 
work might be done, and he himself shine the bravest of 
the brave. If he went to Rouen alone, he scared the sleep 
from her pillow, and wrung the blood from her heart, by 
his reckless waste of her veteran troops. She petted him 
as a boy hopelessly brave, heroically frail ; but she deemed 
him such a fool, though a charming one, that anything he 
raved for must be wrong. If he fumed and fretted, put 

4. Lives and Letters of the Devereux Earls of Essex, 2 vols., 1853, vii.-xiv. 



52 FRANCIS BACON. 

III. 4. his head on her footstool, rushed into the country, pout- 
ed, and sulked, and raged, like a great spoiled child, she 

Se t would not yield to his caprice. Forever asking some- 
thing that he should not have, he would be Master of the 
Horse ; he would have the Cinq Ports ; he would com- 
mand fleets and camps. 

5. In an evil day for Bacon this petulant noble swears 
he shall succeed to Coke. Essex and Bacon have been 
drawn together, less by the magnetism of character, 
though the Earl has a thousand showy and alluring 
ways, than by their common wants. Bacon is poor and 
works for bread. His brother Anthony is poor and lame. 
In the rooms at Gray's Inn they lie sick together, racked 
with pain and pestered by duns. Lady Ann does her 
best : sending them hogsheads of March beer, with plen- 
ty of good advice and scraps of Greek; but the most she 
can do is little, and neither Greek nor good advice will 
discharge their weekly bills. 

A letter from Francis to Lady Bacon gives a glimpse 
into these troubles, — the sickness, the fraternal love, the 
worrying debts. 

Francis Bacon to Lady Bacon. 

From Gray's Inn, April 16, 1593. 

My duty most humbly remembered. I assure myself 
that your ladyship, as a wise and kind mother to us both, 

5. Lambeth MSS. 649, fol. 67, 100. 



LETTEK TO LADY BACON. 53 

will neither find it strange nor unwise that, tendering III. 5. 
first my brother's health, which I know by mine own 
experience to depend not a little upon a free mind, and gept 
then his credit, I presume to put your ladyship in remem- 
brance of your motherly offer to him the same day you 
departed, which was that to help him out of debt you 
would be content to bestow your whole interest in markes 
upon him. The which unless it would please your lady- 
ship to accomplish out of hand, I have just cause to fear 
that my brother will be put to a very shrewde plunge, 
either to forfeit his reversion to Harwin (?) or else to 
undersell it very much ; for the avoiding of both which 
great inconveniences I see no other remedy than your 
ladyship surrender in time, the formal drafte whereof I 
refer to my brother himself, whom I have not any way 
as yet made acquainted with this my motion, neither 
mean to do till I hear from you. The ground whereof 
being only a brotherly care and affection, I hope your 
ladyship will think and accept of it accordingly : be- 
seeching you to believe that being so near and dear part 
of me as he is, that cannot but be a grief unto me to 
see a mind that hath given so sufficient proof of wit (?) 
in having brought forth many good thoughts for the 
general to be overburdened and cumbered with a care 
of clearing his particular estate. Touching myself, my 
diet, I thank God, hitherto hath wrought good effect, 
and am advised to continue this whole month, not. med- 
dling with any purgative physic more than I must needs, 
which will be but a trifle during my whole diet ; and 
so I most humbly take my leave. F. B. 



54 FRANCIS BACON. 

III. 6. 6. No young fellow of Gray's Inn, waiting for the 
tide to flow, is sharper set for funds than the young 

Sept knight for Middlesex or his elder brother. Anthony tries 
to raise his rents, and some of the men about him — 
godless rogues, as Lady Bacon says — propose that he 
shall let his farms to the highest bidders. Goodman 
Grinnell, who has the land at Barly, pays less than he 
ought : let him go out and a better man come in. But 
Goodman Grinnell speeds with his long face to Lady 
Ann. " What ! " cries the good lady to her son ; " turn 
out the Grinnells ! Why, the Grinnells have lived at 
Barly these hundred and twenty years ! " So the broth- 
ers have to look elsewhere. Bonds are coming due. A 
famous money-lender lives in the city, Spencer by name, 
rich as a Jew and close as a miser ; him they go to, 
cap in hand, and with honeyed words. The miser is a 
good miser and allows his bond to lie. Francis writes 
to him from his brother Edward's house at Twicken- 
ham Park, to which he has removed from Gray's Inn 
for the benefit of country air. 

Francis Bacon to Mr. Spencer. 

Twickenham Park, Sept. 19, 1593. 

Good Mr. Spencer, — 
Having understood by my man your kind offer to send 
my brother and me our old bond, we both accept the 
same with hearty thanks, and pray you to cause a new 

6. Lambeth MSS. 649, fol. 109. 



HIS ILLNESS. 55 

to be made for half a year more, which I will both sign III. 6. 
and seal before one Booth, a scrivener, here at Isleworth, ~ 

1593 

and deliver it him to your use, which you know will be s . ' 
as good in law as though you were here present. True 
it is that I cannot promise that my brother should be 
here at that time to join with me, by reason of his daily 
attendance in court, by occasion whereof I am to be 
your sole debtor in the new bond. As for the mesne 
profits thereof, you will receive them presently. I have 
given charge to my man to deliver it. And so with my 
right hearty commendations from my brother and my- 
self, with like thanks for your good-will and kindness 
towards us, which we always shall be ready to acknowl- 
edge when and wherein we may, I commit you to the 
protection of the Almighty. 

Your assured loving friend, 

Fr. Bacon. 

One likes to know that this good miser rose to be 
an alderman of London, and lived to see his daughter 
married to a peer. One dares not say, however, that 
one would like to have been Lord Compton, the hus- 
band of her choice, and heir of the miser's enormous 
hoard. 

7. Bacon lies sick the whole summer of 1593, as a 
note to his old friend Lady Paulett shows. Her lady- 
ship, who had been so kind to him in his younger days 

7. Lambeth MSS. 649, fol. 214. 



56 FRANCIS BACON. 

III. 7. in France, is now a widow ; his good friend Sir Amias 
sleeping the great sleep under a splendid tomb in the 
chancel of St. Martin's Church. Bacon is proud and 



1593. 
Sept. 



glad to do the widow service. 



Francis Bacon to Lady Paulett. 

Twickenham Park, Sept. 23, 1593. 

Madam, — 
Being not able myself, by reason of my long languish- 
ing infirmity, to render unto your ladyship by a per- 
sonal visitation the respect I owe unto your ladyship, I 
would not fail to acquit some part of my debt by send- 
ing this bearer, my servant, expressly to know how your 
ladyship doth, which I beseech God may be no worse 
than I wish and have just cause to wish, considering 
your ladyship's ancient and especial kindness towards 
me. Which if I have not hitherto acknowledged it hath 
been only for want of fit occasions, but no way of duti- 
ful affection, as I hope in time, with God's help, I shall 
be able to verify by good effects towards the young gen- 
tleman Mr. Blount, your nephew, or any other that 
appertains unto your ladyship. This is, good madam, 
much less than you deserve and yet all I can offer, 
which, notwithstanding, I hope you will accept, not that 
it is aught worth of itself, but in respect of the un- 
feigned good-will from whence it proceedeth. And so, 
with my humble and right hearty commendations unto 
your good ladyship, I beseech God to bless you with 



1593. 

Sept. 



CONNECTION WITH ESSEX. 57 

increase of comfort in mind and body, and admit you III. 7. 
to his holy protection. 

Your ladyship's assured and ready in all kind affec- 
tion to do you service, 

Fr. Bacon. 

8. Essex has need of strength such as these penniless 
men of genius have to spare. Francis Bacon has won 
all nature for his province. Anthony is a man of many 
parts ; gay, supple, secret ; fond of society and of affairs, 
of good wines and bright eyes ; at home in cloister and in 
court ; easy in morals, tolerant in creed ; hail fellow with 
the vagabond and the noble, the King's mistress, the 
professional conspirator, the free lance, and the travel- 
ling monk. The two brothers enter into the Earl's ser- 
vice ; Francis as his lawyer and man of political busi- 
ness, Anthony as his secretary ; hoping, as many wise 
men hope, to make him the court leader of that great 
patriotic band of which Raleigh, Drake, and Vere are 
the fighting chiefs ; the one part for which he is gifted 
beyond all other men. Under their eyes he so far gains 
in gravity and sense that the Queen swears him of her 
'Privy Council, and even trusts to his care much of her 
correspondence abroad. Day and night their tongues 
and pens are busy in this work. Anthony writes the 
Earl's letters, instructs his spies, drafts for him de- 
spatches to the agents in foreign lands. Francis shapes 
for him a plan of conduct at the court, and writes for 

8. Lambeth MSS. 649; Devereux, i. 277; Sydney Papers, i. 360. 

3* 



58 FRANCIS BACON. 

III. 8. him a treatise of advice which should have been the 
rule and would have been the salvation of his life. 
For all these labors the workmen must be paid. 



1593 
Sept. 



Oct. 3. 9. Duns weigh on the two brothers. Here are two 
notes to Lady Ann, both from Francis, full of the same 
sad romance of love and debt. One runs : — 



Francis Bacon to Lady Bacon. 

From the Court, Oct. 3, 1593. 

Madam, — 
I received this afternoon at the Court your letter, 
after I had sent back your horse and written to you 
this morning. And for my brother's kindness it is ac- 
customed ; he never having yet refused his security for 
me, as I, on the other side, never made any difficulty 
to do the like by him, according to our several occa- 
sions. And therefore, if it be not to his own disfur- 
nishing, which I reckon all one with mine own want, I 
shall receive good ease by that hundred pounds ; spe- 
cially your ladyship of your goodness being content it 
shall be repaid of Mr. Boldroe's debt, which it pleased* 
you to bestow upon me. And my desire is, it shall 
be paid to Knight at Gray's Inn, who shall receive 
order from me to pay two fifths [?] (which I wish had 
been two hundred) where I owe, and where it presseth 
me most. Sir John Fortescue is not yet in Court ; 

9. Lambeth MSS. 649, fol. 298, 274. 



1593. 
Oct. 3. 



LETTEKS TO LADY BACON. 59 

both to him and otherwise I will be mindful of Mr. in. 9 
Downing's cause and liberty with the first opportunity. 
Mr. Neville, my cousin, though I be further distant 
than I expected, yet I shall have an apt occasion to 
remember. To my cousin Kemp I am sending. But 
that would rest between your ladyship and myself, as 
you said. Thus I commend your ladyship to God's 
good providence. 

Your Ladyship's most obedient, 

• Fr. Bacon. 



Francis Bacon to Lady Bacon. nov.2. 

Twickenham Park, Nov. 2, 1593. 

Madam, — 
I most humbly thank your ladyship for your letter and 
sending your man Bashawe to visit me, who purposeth 
with God's help so soon as possibly I can to do my duty to 
your ladyship, but the soonest I doubt will be to-morrow 
or next Monday come sennight. My brother, I think, 
will go to Saint Albans sooner, with my Lord Keeper, 
who hath kindly offered him room in his obscure lodgings 
there, as he hath already resigned unto him the use of 
his chamber in the Court. God forbid that your lady- 
ship should trouble yourself with any extraordinary care 
in respect of our presence, which if we thought should be 
the least caiise of your discontentment, we would rather 
absent ourselves than occasion any way your ladyship 
disquietness. As for Sotheram, I have been and shall be 



1593. 

Nov. 2. 



60 . FRANCIS BACON. 

III. 9. always ready to hear dutifully your ladyship's motherly 
admonitions touching him or any other man or matter, 
and to respect them as I ought. And so, with remem- 
brance of my humble duties, I beseech God to bless and 
preserve your ladyship. 

F. B. 

March. Essex is poor. Dress, dinners, horses, courtesans 
exhaust his coffers. If he cannot pay in coin he will 
pay in place. His servant Fraacis Bacon shall be the 
Queen's Solicitor. Essex swears it. 

10. Until he swears it all goes well. Burghley sup- 
ports his nephew. Egerton and Fortescue urge his suit 
with admiring friendship on the Queen. Cecil is warm 
in his behalf; not alone begging in his own name, but 
stirring up friends and making a party at the Court. 
Every one at the bar, save only Coke, admits his claim to 
place. 

Essex spoils all. At first the Queen is gracious ; extols 
his eloquence and his wit, while doubting if he be deep in 
law. It only needs that his nomination shall be made in 
the proper way ; because it is the best, not because this 
or that lord of her Court may wish it made. This does 
not please the Earl. Pledged to make Bacon's fortune, 
he will not stoop to see his debts paid by another hand. 
The work must be his own : " Upon me," he says, " must 
lie the labor of his establishment ; upon me the disgrace 
will light of his refusal." 

10. Lambeth MSS. 649, fol. 37, 60, 197; 650, fol. 109. 



1594. 
Mar. 24. 



THE SOLICITOESHIP. 61 

The Queen gets angry at this selfish pride. When he HI. 10 
talks of Bacon she shuts her ears ; but night and day 
he hammers at the name ; doing his full of mischief ; 
fretting and sulking till he drives her mad. Never were 
good intentions worse bestowed. A brief note from the 
Earl to Bacon brings the impatient Queen and her impor- 
tunate suitor on the scene : — 



The Earl of Essex to Francis Bacon. 

24 March, 1594. 

Sir, — 
The Queen did yesternight fly the gift, and I do wish, 
if it be no impediment to the cause you do handle to- 
morrow, you did attend again this afternoon. I will be 
at the Court in the evening, and go with Mr. Yice-Cham- 
berlain, so as, if you fail before we come, yet afterwards I 
doubt not but he or I shall bring you together. This I 
write in haste because I would have no opportunity omit- 
ted in this point of access. I wish to you as to myself, 
and rest 

Your most affectionate friend, 

Essex. 

The Queen will not see him. She will not have her 
freedom of selection curbed. 

11. Bacon is surprised and hurt. His. hopes for the Mayi. 

11. Lambeth MSS. 650, fol. 125. 



1594. 
May 1. 



62 FRANCIS BACON. 

III. 11. moment dashed, he perceives no chance of succeeding 
even at a better time, unless the Queen can be in- 
duced to leave the Solicitor ship for the present void. 
To this end he applies to his cousin Cecil. Here is 
his note : — 

Francis Bacon to Sir Robert Cecil. 

Gray's Inn, May 1, 1594. 

My most honorable good Cousin, — 
Your honor in your wisdom doth well perceive that 
my access at this time is grown desperate in regard 
of the hard termes that as well the Earl of Essex as 
Mr. Vice-Chamberlain, who were to have been the means 
thereof, stand in with her in acceding to their occa- 
sions. And therefore I am now only to fall upon that 
point of delaying and preserving the matter entire till 
a better constellation, which, as it is not hard, as I con- 
ceive, considering the proving business and the instant 
Progress, &c, so I commend in special to your honor's 
care, who in sort assured me thereof, and upon [whom] 
now in my lord of Essex' absence I have only to rely. 
And if it be needful, I humbly pray you to move my 
Lord your father to lay his sure * hand to the same 
delay. And so I wish you all increase of honor. 
• Your poor kinsman in. faithful prayers and duty, 

Francis Bacon. 
• 

Cecil, who knows that the Earl, and none but the 



LADY BACON'S ILLNESS. 63 

Earl, stands in the way of his cousin's rise, writes back, III. 11 
on the same sheet of paper, in the left corner, these 
words : — 



Sir Robert Cecil to Francis Bacon. 

Cousin, — 
I do think nothing cuts the throat more of your 
present access than the Earl's being somewhat troubled 
at this time. For the delaying, I think it not hard ; 
neither shall there want my best endeavors to make it 
easy, of which I hope you shall not need to doubt. 
By the judgment which I gather of divers circumstances 
confirming my opinion, I protest I suffer with you in 
mind that you are thus yet gravelled ; but time will 
founder all your competitors and set you on your feet, 
or else I have little understanding. 

12. For the first time in his life Bacon is now a 
stranger at the court. Lady Ann lies sick at Gorham- 
bury ; so sick, that the " good Christian and Saint of 
God," as her son affectionately calls her, makes up her 
soul for death. Two of her household have been 
snatched away from her side by plague or fever. She 
is down with ague. Bacon wrestles with her resigna- 
tion, praying her to use all helps and comforts that 
are good for her health, to the end that she may be 
spared to her children and her friends, and to that 

12. Lambeth MSS. 649, fol. 232; 650, fol. 140. 



1594. 
May 1. 



64 FRANCIS BACON. 

III. 12. church of God which has so much need of her. Here 
is the letter from which these particulars are drawn : — 



1594. 

June 9, 



Francis Bacon to Lady Bacon. 

June 9, 1594. 

My humble duty remembered, I was sorry to under- 
stand by Goodman Sotheram that your ladyship did 
find any weakness, which I hope was but caused by 
the season and weather, which waxeth more hot and 
faint. I was not sorry, I assure your ladyship, that 
you came not up, in regard that the stirring at this time 
of year, and the place where you should lie not being 
very open nor fresh, might rather hurt your ladyship 
than otherwise. And for anything to be passed to Mr. 
Trot, such is his kindness, as he demandeth it not ; 
and therefore, as I am to thank your ladyship for your 
willingness, so it shall not be needful but upon such 
an occasion as may be without your trouble, which the 
rather may be because I purpose, God willing, to come 
down, and it be but for a day, to visit your lady- 
ship, and to do my duty to you. In the mean time I 
pray your health, as you have done the part of a good 
Christian and Saint of God in the comfortable prepar- 
ing for your duty. So nevertheless, I pray, deny not 
your body the due, nor your children and friends, and 
the church of God, which hath use of you, but that 
you enter not into further conceit than is cause ; and 
withal use all comforts and helps that are good for 



1594. 

June 9. 



LADY BACON'S ILLNESS. 65 

your health and strength. In truth I have heard ILL 12 
Sir Thomas Scudamore often complain, after his quar- 
tain had ceased, that he found such a heaviness and 
swelling under his ribs that he thought he was buried 
under earth all from the waist ; and therefore that 
accident no bad incident. Thus I commend your lady- 
ship to God's good preservation from grief. 

Your ladyship's most obedient son, 

Fr. Bacon. 

It may be I shall have occasion, because nothing is 
yet done in the choice of a Solicitor, to visit the Court 
this vacation, which I have not now done this month's 
time, in which respect, because having sent to and fro 
spoyleth it, I would be glad of that light bed of stripes 
which your ladyship hath, if you have not otherwise 
disposed it. 

13. The Saint of God is spared to her sons for a Aug. 20. 
little while. When Francis makes her a visit he finds 
her weak with pain, her memory failing like her health, 
but her tongue and pen as swift to advise as ever. An- 
thony's easy nature, his indulgence of his men, his 
love of finery and show and pleasure, wring the poor 
lady's heart. She wants to see him marry and amend 
his ways ; but she sings of a wife in vain to this gay 
companion of the young Earl of Essex, Rutland, and 
Southampton. She would not mind stripping her house 

13. Lambeth MSS. 650, fol. 168, 171, 223. 



1594. 

Aug. 20 



66 FKANCIS BACON. 

III. 13. of everything for him, her pictures, her carpets, and 
her chairs, if her eldest born would only marry a sober 
and religious girl. But all pretty faces are to him 
the same. When Francis rides away from Gorham- 
bury, she sends after him a string of pigeons and a 
world of pious and tender exhortations for the good of 
body and soul. 

Lady Bacon to Francis Bacon. 

20th Aug., 1594. 

I was so full of back-pain when you came hither, 
that my memory was very slippery. I forgot to mention 
of rents. If you have not, I have not, received Frank's 
last half-year of Midsummer, the first half so long un- 
paid. You will mar your tenants if you suffer them. 
Mr. Brocquet is suffered by your brother to cosen me 
and beguile me without check. I fear you came too 
late to London for your horse : ever regard them. I 
desire Mr. Trot to hearken to some honest man, and 
cook too as he may. If you can hear of a convenient 
place I shall be willing if it so please God ; for Lawson 
will draw your brother wherever he chooses, as I really 
fear, and that with false semblance. God give you both 
good health and hearts to serve him truly, and bless 
you always with his favor. I send you pigeons taken 
this day, and let blood. Look well about you and yours 
too. I hear that Robert Knight is but sickly. I am 
sorry for it. I do not write to my Lord-Treasurer, 



1594. 
Aug. 20. 



LETTEK TO ANTHONY BACON. 67 

because you like to stay. Let this letter be unseen. III. 13 
Look very well to your health ; sup not, nor sit up late. 
Surely I think your drinking to bedwards hindereth 
your and your brother's digestion very much. I never 
knew any but sickly that used it, besides being ill for 
heads and eyes. Observe well, yet in time. Farewell 
in Christ. A. Bacon. 

At court affairs look gray, Elizabeth will not have 
a name forced on her for selfish ends. She hears bad 
news enough to worry the stoutest heart: now a stir 
among the Irish rebels, now a threat of a descent from 
Spain. Francis writes to Anthony : — 

Feancis Bacon to Anthony Bacon. Aug 26. 

Gray's Inn, Aug. 26, 1594. 

Brother, — 

My cousin Cook is some four days home, and ap- 
pointeth towards Italy that day sennight. I pray take 
care for the money to be paid over within four or five 
days. The sum you remember is 150/. I hear nothing 
from the Court in mine own business. There hath 
been a defeat of some force in Ireland by Macguire 
which troubleth the Queen, being unaccustomed to such 
news'; and thereupon the opportunity is alleged to be 
lost to move her. But there is an answer by the com- 
ing in of the Earl of Tyrone as was expected. 

I steal to Twickenham, purposing to return this night, 



1594 
Aug. 21 



68 FRANCIS BACON. 

III. 13. else I had visited you as I came from the town. Thus 
in haste I leave you to God's preservation. 

Your entire loving brother, 

Fr. Bacon. 

Anthony is not now at Gray's Inn Square, having 
taken a house in Bishopsgate-street, a fashionable part 
of the city, near the famous Bull Inn, where plays are 
performed before cits and gentlemen, very much to the 
delight of Essex and his jovial crew, but very much, 
as Lady Ann conceives, to the peril of her son's soul. 
The good mother cannot put old heads on young necks, 
say what she will. " I am sorry," she writes to her 
easy elder-born, " your brother and you charge your- 
selves with superfluous horses ; the wise will laugh at 
you ; being but trouble to you both ; besides your debts, 
long journeys, and private persons. Earls be earls." 
There is the rub. Lady Ann knows, and does not love, 
these madcap earls. 

By help of Cecil, and the Yice-Chamberlain, Fulke 
Greville, Bacon succeeds so far as to get the nomina- 
tion of Solicitor put off. For more than a year the 
situation undergoes no change. 

14. The Queen is full of care ; the tug and tempest 

14. J. Cecil to Sir R. Cecil, Mar. 1594, S. P. 0. ; Examination of Capt. Ed- 
ward Yorke, Aug. 12, 1594, S. P. 0.; Declaration of Henry Yonge, Aug. 12, 
1594, S. P. 0.; Confession of Richard Williams, Aug. 27, 1594, S. P. 0.; Cata- 
logue of Rebels and Fugitives receiving Pensions from Spain, Sept. 1594, S. P. 
0. ; Council Reg., Oct. 29, 1594. 



THE EOMAN LEAGUE. 69 

of her reign being close at hand. The league of Pope in. 14 
and King, baffled by the swift scene at Fotheringay, 
broken by the loss of the Invincible Armada and the 
victories of Henri Quatre, has again been formed. 
Plans for seizing Guernsey and Jersey, arming the Ul- 
ster insurgents, throwing troops into Wales, and rous- 
ing a London mob, have been warmly debated in Ma- 
drid. Medina Coeli commands a mighty force at Cadiz. 
Philip at Madrid, Cardinal Archduke Albrecht at Brus- 
sels, are counting, pensioning, directing the English 
exiles, men amongst whom Wright and Winter, Stanley 
and Tresham, enjoy conspicuous favor. Father Parsons, 
Father Creswell, and Father Holt, the most bigoted and 
brazen of the English Jesuits, busy themselves among 
the needy and fanatical desperadoes of foreign courts 
and camps, everywhere vilifying the land which has 
cast them out, and whetting against their Queen the 
assassin's knife. Nor do they toil in vain. Two mili- 
tary ruffians, Captain Richard Williams and Captain 
Edward Yorke, offering to become the Clements — the 
Ravaillacs — of a more atrocious crime, have crossed 
the sea, and when taken, knife in hand, and flung into 
the Tower, confess that they have come into England 
commissioned by their spiritual and military chiefs for 
murder. They implicate by name Sir William Stanley 
and Father Holt. 

15. Bacon is sick of heart ; looks wan and thin, as Juce 3. 

15. Lambeth MSS. 651, fol. 144. Patent Rolls 38 Eliz. par. vi. 25. 



70 FKANCIS BACON. 

III. 15. all the world takes note. The heady Earl has proved 
to him a fatal friend. Lady Ann pours on her son her 
T ' counsels and consolations. 

June d. 

Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. 

June 3, 1595. 

I am sorry your brother with inward secret grief 
hindereth his health. Everybody saith he looketh thin 
and pale. Let him look to God and confer with him 
in godly exercise of hearing and reading, and continue 
to be noted to take care. I had rather ye both, with 
God's blessed favor, had very good healths, and were 
well out of debt, than any office. Yet though the earl 
showed great affection, he marred all with violent 
courses. 

I pray God increase His fear in his heart and a ha- 
tred of sin ; indeed, halting before the Lord and back- 
sliding are very pernicious. I am heartily sorry to hear 
how he [the Earl of Essex] sweareth and gameth un- 
reasonably. God cannot like it. 

I pray show your brother this letter, but to no crea- 
ture else. Remember me and yourself. 

Your mother, 

A. B. 

If the Queen hangs back, and if Burghley hesitates, 
it is not from dislike or distrust to Bacon ; but simply 
because so grave a nomination as a successor to Coke 



GRANT FROM THE CROWN. 71 

ought not to be made as a bounty or a submission to III. 15. 
the Earl. The more they feel that such a post can 

1595 

never be filled in such a way, the more they strive to 
let the world see that the advocate, not the candidate 
is in fault. 

At the express suggestion of Burghley and Fortescue, July 14. 
the Queen appoints Bacon one of her Counsel Learned 
in the Law, and confers on him, at a nominal rent, a 
good estate. This grant comprises sixty acres, more 
or less of wood, in the forest of Zelwood in the coun- 
ty of Somerset, known as the Pitts ; which Bacon re- 
ceives from the Crown on a rent of seven pounds 
ten shillings a year, payable at the feasts of St. Mi- 
chael the Archangel, and of the Annunciation of the 
Virgin. 

16. If Elizabeth pauses in her choice of a Solicitor- Aug.?. 
General, her servants see that Bacon's hopes are for the 
moment dead. Lady Ann hears this bad news at Gor- 
hambury, and writes to console her son. 



Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. 

Aug. 7, 1595. 

If Her Majesty have resolved upon the negative for 
your brother, as I hear, truly, save for the brust a little, 
I am glad of it. God in His time hath better in store I 

16. Lambeth MSS. 651, fol. 211. 



72 FKANCIS BACON. 

ni. 16. trust. For considering his kind of health and what cum- 
ber pertains to that office, it is best for him I hope. Let 

Aug. 7. us a ^ P ray tne Lord we make us to profit by His fatherly 
correction ; doubtless it is His hand, and all for the best, 
and love to His children that will seek Him first, and 
depend upon His goodness. Godly and wisely love ye, 
like brethren, whatsoever happen, and be of good courage 
in the Lord, with good hope. 

A. B. 

And how does Bacon bear this prospect of defeat ? 
Merrily, it seems. There is a glimpse of him in his 
mother's notes to Anthony : " With a humble heart 
before God, let your brother be of good cheer. Alas ! 
what excess of bucks at Gray's Inn ! And to feast it on 
the Sabbath ! God forgive and have mercy upon Eng- 
land ! " 

sept. 17. A fleet has gone from Plymouth under Drake. A 
fleet more terrible to the Don is arming under Raleigh. 
Drake is a marauder, Raleigh a statesman. If he can 
burn Nombre di Dios and spoil the carracks of Mar- 
garita, Drake will be at peace. Raleigh, fresh from 
his romantic voyage to the Amazon, flushed with the 
hope of conquest and discovery, is bent on founding 
States. 

Bacon, who sees in Raleigh, not alone the nimble wit, 

17. Elizabeth to Raleigh, Nov., 1595, S. P. 0. ; Notes of the Supplemental part 
of the Entertainment given at York House, Nov. 17, 1595, S. P. 0. 



MASQUE AT YORK HOUSE. 73 

the proud courtier, the dashing seaman, but the leader of III. 17. 
vast horizon, of philosophic thought, would like to keep 
Essex on easy terms with him ; the two men holding, as ge t ' 
far as might be, a common course in politics and in war. 
Their loves and hates are the same. Each longs for war ; 
a war of books and laws against Rome, a war of pikes 
and culverins against Spain. Each in his own person 
represents the youth and genius of the time : Essex that 
of the nobles, Raleigh of the gentry. Each of the two 
seems to Bacon needful to the other and to the common 
cause : the Queen's kinsman to uphold it against timid 
counsels at court, the founder of Yirginia to maintain 
it against Philip's admirals on the Spanish Main. A 
frank and loyal union of these two men would have given 
England the free use of all her arms ; in the long run it 
would have saved them both from the block. With 
tongue and pen Bacon labors to make peace between 
them. He seeks to push the new expedition. In spite 
of Raleigh's pride, which often mars his work, he repeats 
to Essex that Raleigh will be his stanchest and safest 
friend. 

Essex is preparing to receive the Queen at York House 
in the Strand with a grand entertainment and a sump- 
tuous masque given in her honor ; for which Bacon is 
composing characters and words. The play being given 
in Essex's name, here are the means for a striking and 
conspicuous compliment to Raleigh. Bacon frames a 
scene of the masque in happy allusion to the Amazon 
and to Raleigh's voyage. 
4 



1595. 

Nov. 



74 FBANCIS BACON. 

111. 18. 18. Essex has not the grace to let it stand. The glory 
of Raleigh breaks his rest, for he himself aspires to be 
all that Raleigh is, — renowned in war even more than 
in letters and in courts. He strikes his pen through 
Bacon's lines, which drop from the acted scene and 
from the printed masque. A contemporary copy of this 
suppressed part remains in the State Paper Office ; a 
proof how much, five years before the Earl rushes into 
high treason, Bacon leans to the side of her Majesty's 
Captain of the Guard. 

The opportunity thrown away by Essex, Burghley, and 
Cecil hug to their hearts. They give, not only their 
countenance to Raleigh, but their money to the Guiana 
voyage ; Burghley contributing five hundred pounds, 
Cecil a new ship, the hull of which alone costs him 
no less than eight hundred pounds. 

Nov. 5. 19. The Earl's want of tact and temper is more hurt- 
ful to his friends than to his foes. He does Raleigh 
no great harm ; he causes Bacon the most grievous 
loss. Give me this place of the Solicitor, — he drums 
and drums at the Queen's ear. She thinks her law offi- 
cers should be chosen by herself, and for their good 
parts, not to please the fancy or make good the pledges 
of a carpet knight. She will not do a right thing for 
a bad reason or in a wrong way. Her courts are 



18. Entertainment given to the Queen at York House, Nov. 17, 1595 ; Sydney 
Papers, i. 377. 

19. Warrant Book, Nov. 5, 1595. 



1595. 
Not. 



FLEMING MADE SOLICITOR-GENERAL. 75 

crowded with able men. She is old enough to choose HI. 19 
a servant for herself. As Essex grows hot, she cools : 
when he storms upon her and will not be denied, she 
turns from the spoiled boy, her nomination made. Ba- 
con must wait ; Fleming shall be her man. 

20. Lord Campbell says, as writers have said from the 
days of Bushel, that the Earl atoned to Bacon for his 
failure by a gift of Twickenham Park. It happens, how- 
ever, that Twickenham Park was not, and never had 
been, the Earl's to give. That lovely seat, which blooms 
by the Thames, close under Richmond Bridge, fronting 
the old palace, and some of the elms of which stand, 
venerable and green, in the days of Victoria, had be- 
longed to the Bacons for many years. In 1574, while 
Essex was a boy at Chartley, Twickenham Park, together 
with More Mead and Ferry Mead, the adjoining lands, 
had been granted by the Queen to Edward Bacon on 
lease. The lease is enrolled, and may be examined in 
the Record Office. Francis lived in the house, as his 
letters prove, long before his patent of Solicitor passed 
the Seal. It had all the points of a good country-house ; 
a green landscape, wood and water, pure air, a dry soil, 
vicinity to the court and to the town. From his win- 
dows he could peer into the Queen's alleys ; in an hour 
he could trot up to Whitehall or Gray's Inn. Every 
plant that thrives, every flower that blows, in the south 
of England, loves the Twickenham soil. There were 

20. Rolls, Mar. 3, 16 Eliz., Record Office. 



1595. 

Nov. 



76 FKANCIS BACON. 

III. 20. cedars in the great park, swans on the river, singing- 
birds in the copse ; every sight to engage the eye, every 
sound to please the ear. 

He loved the house, and lived in it when he could 
steal away from Gray's Inn. It was his house of letters 
and philosophy, as the lodging in Gray's Inn Square was 
his house of politics and law. In fact, when the Earl 
ferried over from Richmond Palace, he leaped from his 
barge on to Bacon's lawn. 

21. Unable to pay his debt by a public office, Essex 
feels that he ought to pay it in money or in money's 
worth. The lawyer has done his work, must be told his 
fee. But the Earl -has no funds. His debts, his amours, 
his camp of servants eat him up. He will pay in a 
patch of land. To this Bacon objects : not that he need 
scruple at taking wages ; not that the mode of payment 
is unusual ; not that the price is beyond his claim. 
Four years have been spent in the Earl's service. To 
pay in land is the fashion of a time when gold is scarce 
and soil is cheap. Nor is the patch too large ; at most 
it may be worth 1,200/. or 1,500/. After Bacon's im- 
provements and the rise of rents, he sells it to "Reynold 
Nicholas for 1,800/. It is less than the third of a year's 
income from the Solicitor-General's place. Bacon's 
doubts have a deeper source. Knowing the Earl's fiery 



21. Sir Francis Bacon, his Apologie in certain imputations concerning the 
late Earl of Essex, written to his very good Lord the Earl of Devonshire, 1604, 
13, 16. 



1595. 

Nov. 



ESSEX'S GIFT OF LAND. 77 

temper, and sharing in some degree his mother's fears, III. 21 
he shrinks from incurring feudal obligations to one so 
vain and weak. Hurt by his hesitation, Essex pouts 
and sulks ; being, as he truly says, the sole cause of this 
loss of place, he will die of vexation if he be not allowed 
in some small measure to repair it. Bacon submits. Yet 
even in taking the strip of ground, he betrays the un- 
easy sentiment lurking in his heart. " My Lord," he 
says, " I see I must be your homager and hold land of 
your gift ; but do you know the manner of doing hom- 
age in law ? Always it is with saving of his faith to 
the King." 

22. What says the Queen ? Writers who laud the 
generosity of a man to whom Bacon owed loss of char- 
acter and loss of place, denounce the stinginess of a 
woman to whose noble and unfailing friendship he owed 
almost everything which he possessed on earth. These 
scribes are hard to please : they treat Bacon as a rogue 
whom it is the duty of honest men to scourge ; yet decry 
the Queen for laying on the lash. What would they 
have ? If Bacon were the rascal they have made him, 
surely the Queen would have done well in starving his 
powers of mischief! Their reasoning is faulty as their 
facts. Inquiry at the Rolls Office would have shown 
them that, even while she was naming Fleming for her 
Solicitor-General, Elizabeth was Francis Bacon's most 
warm and munificent friend. 

22. Montagu, xvi. part i. 27. 



1595. 
Nov. 



78 FRANCIS BACON. 

III. 22. She long ago gave him a reversion of the Registry of 
the Star Chamber ; a post, when he should get it, worth 
1,600Z. a year. As he could no more spare his jest than 
Tully, he said it was like having another man's land near 
his house : it improved his prospect, but did not fill his 
barn. With woful lack of humor, Rawley mistook this 
truly Baconian laughter for a groan ; and the poor chap- 
lain's petulant wail misled Montagu into dreaming, con- 
trary to all the evidence of Rolls and grants, that Eliza- 
beth put the yoke on Bacon's neck. This blunder of 
Rawley drove Montagu to the drollest shifts. Knowing 
how Bacon cherished her fame in his heart of hearts, 
how was the biographer to reconcile this fable of her 
stinginess to him with the fact of his undying gratitude 
to her ? He hit on the queerest explanation. Does a 
father who loves his son spare the rod ? Are not pangs 
and stripes good for the soul? Yes, the great Queen 
must have understood the great man ; in mercy to the 
world, she crossed him at the bar and starved him at the 
court ! Macaulay rent and tossed this amazing theory ; 
but neither he nor Lord Campbell ever paused to ask 
if it were true that Elizabeth left him to starve. 

23. The reversion of the Star Chamber, the grant of 
Zelwood Forest, the post of her Counsel learned in the 
Law, are but a foretaste of her love. Edward Bacon's 
lease of Twickenham Park has just expired ; that lovely 
home by the water-edge will be his no more. The house 

23. Rot. 38 Eliz., pars vi. 20, Record Office. 



THE QUEEN'S GRANTS. 79 

has an importance beyond the beauty of its site ; a merit III. 23. 
rarer than the green mead, the leafy wood, the rushing 
stream, the whitening swans ; it stands all day in the Nov 17# 
sovereign's sight. To live in such a place is to be a daily 
guest in her Majesty's mind. The house is good, the 
park spacious ; within the pales are eighty-seven acres of 
lawn and pasture, lake and orchard ; beyond the pales 
five or six acres of mead and field. It is a home for a 
prince. 

Fourteen years ago the park had been leased to Milo 
Dodding for thirty years, commencing from the expira- 
tion of Edward Bacon's term ; but on passing to Fleming 
the patent of his place, the gracious Queen makes over to 
Francis Bacon a reversion of this lease. On the fifth 
of November Fleming gets his commission as Solicitor- 
General ; on the seventeenth of November, the day of 
his masque at York House, of his proposed compliment 
to the Guiana voyage, Bacon's grant of the reversion of 
Twickenham Park passes under the Privy Seal. 



80 FRANCIS BACON. 



1596. 
May. 



CHAPTER IV. 



TREASON OF SIR JOHN SMYTH. 



IV. 1. 1. The Queen not only endows Bacon with lands, 
and with the reversion of lands and offices, but em- 
ploys him in her legal and political affairs ; often in 
business which would seem to belong exclusively to 
the department of Fleming or of Coke. As her Coun- 
sel learned in the Law, he is engaged in the prosecu- 
tion of William Randal. He is consulted in the more 
momentous charge against Sir John Smyth, who stands 
accused of no less a crime than that of an attempt, 
under circumstances of peculiar guilt, to provoke a mil- 
itary mutiny and insurrection against the Queen. 

2. In the spring of 1596 an expedition, meant to an- 
ticipate the Roman league, has been arming in the 
Thames. Its destination is unknown, though the few 
suspect that a blow will fall on the most prosperous and 
beautiful of Spanish ports. Raleigh is still at home ; 
Keymish having gone with his fleet of ships to the 

1. Egerton, Fleming, and Bacon to the Council, May 3, 1596, S. P. 0.; Lucas 
to the Council, June 23, 1596, S. P. 0. 

2. Lambeth MSS. 657, fol. 29, 30. 



1596. 

May 15. 



LETTEE TO HIS BEOTHEE ANTHONY. 81 

mouths of the Amazon. Yere and Effingham are drilling IV. 2 
troops. Essex — martial, if not military — is pouting 
for command. Anthony and Francis Bacon busy them- 
selves in collecting news for the Queen from foreign 
spies and foreign Gazettes. While the Earl of Essex 
lies at Plymouth, waiting for Raleigh and the rear- 
guard of his fleet to come round, Francis writes to his 
brother : — 



Feancis Bacon to Anthony Bacon. 

May 15, 1596. 

My veey good Beothee, — 
I have remembered your salutation to Sir John 
Fortescue, and delivered him the Gazette, desiring 
him to reserve it to read in his barge. He acknowl- 
edged it to be of another sort than the common. I 
delivered him account so much of E. Hawkins's letter 
as contained advertisements copied out ; which is the 
reason I return the letter to you now ; the Gazette being 
gone with him to the court. 

The next words consecutive I have not acquainted 
him with, nor any of them. The body is for more apt 
time. So, in haste, I wish you comfort as I write. 
Your entire loving brother, 

Fe. Bacon. 

Fourteen days later, the fleet now riding in Plymouth 
Sound, he writes again. Anthony, tiring of the Earl's 



82 FRANCIS BACON. 

IV. 2. unprofitable service, wishes to be sent abroad as agent 

or ambassador, — a post for which he is eminently fit. 
1596. _ . " 
May 31. ™° ^ su i* f° r sucn a place Francis refers: — 



Francis Bacon to Anthony Bacon. 

From the Court, May 31st, 1596. 

Good Brother, — 
Yesternight Sir John Fortescue told me you had not 
many hours before imparted to the Queen your adver- 
tisement, and the Gazettes likewise, which the Queen 
desired Mr. H. Stanhope to read all over unto her ; and 
her Majesty commandeth they be not made vulgar. The 
advertisement her Majesty made estimation of, as con- 
curring with the other advertisements, and belike con- 
curring also with her opinion of the affairs. So he 
willed me to return to you the Queen's speeches. Other 
particulars of any speech from her Majesty of yourself 
he did not repeat to me. For my Lord of Essex and 
the Lord-Treasurer, he said he was ready and disposed 
to do his best. But I seemed to make it only a love- 
suit, and passed presently from it, the rather because 
it was late in the night, and I was to deal with him on 
some better occasion after another manner, as you shall 
hereafter understand from me. I do find in the speech 
of some ladies, and the very fairest of this court, some 
additions of reputation as methinks to be both ; and 
I doubt not but God hath an operation (?) in it that 
will not suffer good endeavors to perish. The Queen 



LETTEK TO HIS BROTHER ANTHONY. 83 

saluted me to-day as she went to supper. I had long IV. 2. 
speech with Sir Robert Cecil this morning, who seemed 
apt to discourse with me. Yet of your hest not a M 31 
word (?) This I write to you in haste, aliud ex alio. 
I pray you, in the course of acquainting my Lord, say 
where presseth, at first by me, after from yourself, I 
am more and more bound to him. Thus, wishing you 
good health, I commend you to God's happiness. 
Your entire loving brother, 

Fr. Bacon. 

3. Against the Queen's sounder sense, Essex gets com- 
mand of the land forces told off for a dash at Cadiz. On 
the eve of sailing, conscious that, though he may have 
meant the best, he has done for Bacon the worst that 
man could do, he writes in kindly but superfluous words 
to recommend him to the care of his oldest and sagest 
friend. Thus, in generous helplessness, he writes to 
Egerton : — 



Essex to Lord Keeper Egerton. 

May 27, 1596. 

My very good Lord, — 

I do understand by my good friend Mr. E. B. how 

much he is bound to your Lordship for your favor. I do 

send your Lordship my best thanks, and do protest unto 

you there is no gentleman in England of whose good for- 

3. Lambeth MSS. 657, 90. 



1596. 

May. 



84 FRANCIS BACON. 

IY. 3. tune I have been more desirous. I do still retain the 
same mind; but, because . my ; intercession hath rather 
hurt him than done him good, I dare not move the 
Queen for him. To your Lordship I earnestly commend 
the care I have of his advancement ; for his parts were 
never destined to a private and (if I may so speak) an 
idle life. That life I, call idle that is not spent in public 
business ; for otherwise he will ever give himself worthy 
tasks. Your. Lordship, in performing what I desire, will 
oblige us both, and within very short time see such fruit 
of your own work as will please you well. So, com- 
mending your Lordship to God's best protection, I rest, 
at your Lordship's commandment, 

Essex. 

June. 4. At length they are gone ; Effingham, Raleigh, Vere, 
Montjoy, all the great fighting men, on board ; leaving 
England for the moment bare of fleets or troops. Twelve 
days have worn since the ships weighed anchor in Plym- 
outh Sound, and not one word of news has come to 
shore. They may be hundreds of fathoms deep in the 
Bay of Biscay, or lie crushed and strewn under Lisbon 
• rock. Should they have perished as the Invincible Ar- 
mada perished ! It is known that the Twelve Apostles, 
gigantic Andalusian war-ships, float in Cadiz bay ; that a 
fleet of transports rides at the Groyne ; that a Spanish 

4. Gilbert to Raleigh, Mar. 16, 1596, S. P. 0. ; Gorges to Burghley, April 12, 
1596, S. P. 0.; Proclamation by the Earl of Essex, April 14, 1596, S. P. 0.; 
Queen Elizabeth to Cobham, June 7, 1596, S. P. 0. ; Council Reg., June 1 to 
August 7, 1596. 



1596. 

June. 



I 
DEFENSIVE PREPARATIONS. 85 

army of horse and foot crouches behind the heights of IV. 4 
San Sebastian and the walls of Bilboa ; that a body of 
victorious troops, flushed with the assault of Calais, occu- 
pies the dunes which look on Dover cliffs. It is felt that 
a storm, a repulse, even a dead calm, may give the signal 
for a swarm of Pandours and Walloons to burst into Kent. 
Some, in this day of dark suspense, dispute the 
policy of having sent the fleet on such a cruise, — many 
blame the ambition which pulls the weaver from his 
loom, the hind from his plough. Every one has to 
submit to loss of money or loss of time. The train- 
bands garrison the city and protect the Court. Lord 
Cobham holds the Cinque Ports. Sir Thomas Lucas 
puts the men of Colchester under drill. The bombar- 
diers of Dover, Plymouth, and Milford Haven stand to 
their guns. Musters for defence gather even in the 
midland and northern shires ; where, at a call from the 
Privy Council, yeomen snatch down their bills and 
pikes, often rusty and out of date, bills which had been 
swung in Bosworth field, bows which had been drawn 
at Agincourt. On every village green, and under every 
market-cross, drums beat and tabors sound the local 
force to arms. 

5. Now is the time for friends , of Rome to strike. j U nei2. 
Where there is much to bear, a man of weak under- 

5. Elizabeth's Letters Patent to raise troops in Kent, Sussex, Middlesex, and 
Surrey, for relief of Calais, April 1596, S. P. 0. ; Smyth to Cecil, Mar. 14, 1600, 
S. P. 0. ; Discourse of the Providence necessary to be had for the setting up of 
the Catholic Faith, Aug. 1600, S. P. O. 



1596. 
June 12. 



86 FRANCIS BACON. 



IV. 5. standing will infer that, despite ambition and pride of 
race, there must be fires of discontent ready to flare 
out. When discontent is armed, it may be led to abuse 
its strength ; so at least reasons the rich country gentle- 
man, Sir John Smyth. 

Smyth is a Roman Catholic, owner of Baddow and 
Coggeshall, in Essex ; a friend of the great Seymour 
family ; an ally of Catherine de' Medici ; a correspond- 
ent of the foreign Jesuits and priests. His life has 
been one long plot. In the war now booming, all his 
love lies beyond the sea. The doctrine taught by Par- 
sons and Bellarmino, that a good Roman Catholic must 
fight and pray for his Church, even against his native 
sovereign and his native land, is an active portion of 
his creed. Others may wish to maim the government, 
may pray for storms to whelm or cannon to crush the 
English fleet ; Smyth alone is fool enough to risk his 
neck by active measures in support of the allies of his 
Church. The fighting men gone, he beholds the Queen, 
the lords of her Council, all the peers of her realm, 
at the mercy, as he thinks, of an armed, uncertain 
mob. A march on London, a fight under the windows 
of Whitehall, may cause the fleets to hie back to Plym- 
outh, or the Spaniards to cross the Straits. 

Cries are never wanting to a traitor. There is the 
old, old feud of poor against rich ; the old, old aversion 
of local troops to serve the Crown in its foreign wars. 
Unhappily both these feuds are now malignant : that 
between rich and poor being imbittered by the recent 



SMYTH'S TREASON. 8T 

conversion of a vast extent of plough-land into pasture, IV. 5. 
by the destruction of a great number of cottages and 
holdings, and by the increase of sheep-walks and of Junel2 . 
parks for the preservation of red and fallow deer ; that 
between the local troops and the Crown, by reports 
that the musters have been forced to go on board the 
fleet, and that soldiers raised in the metropolitan shires 
have been sent by the Government into France. 

The decay of tillage, the increase of sheep and deer, 
are for the yeoman class, and for the country of which 
they are the thew and sinew, dark events. The yeomen 
kick against the goad ; for, not being skilled in science, 
they cannot see that they are driven from their farms by 
the operations of a natural law. If they have ever heard 
'that, as wool pays better than rent, their landlords prefer 
sheep to men, the news has not reconciled them to the 
conversion of their old farms into sheep-walks or deer- 
parks. Smyth, as a country gentleman, sees this sore^ 
and fancies he may turn the discontent against the 
Queen. 

6. Like his neighbors, Smyth hands down from his 
walls the rusty arms, calling in Frost of Colchester to 
edge his swords and string his bows. Thomas Seymour, 
one of those weak descendants of Mary Brandon whose 
blood is too red for their sovereign's comfort, or their, 
own, joins him in his freak. With an army of two 



6. Examination of John Lucas and others, June 12, 1596, S. P. 0.; Examina- 
tion of Frost, June 22, 1596, S. P. 0.; Smyth to Mannocke, June 13, 1596, 
S. P. 0. 



1596. 
June 12. 



88 . FRANCIS BACON. 

IV. 6. mounted followers, Smyth and Seymour ride into the 
field at Colchester in which Sir Thomas Lucas, fiercely 
loyal, drills his troop. Reining their steeds in front of 
the yeoman line, Sir John cries, " Who will go with me ? 
There are traitors round the Queen who grind the poor 
into bondmen ; who. send them' out of the realm ; who 
break the laws ; who weaken the country, who ruin the 
yeomen. These traitors have killed nine thousand foot 
in their foreign wars, and they will send you out of Eng- 
land to be slain." .'.■•'.' 

" Shall we go with you, Sir John ? " asks a trooper. 

" You shall go with a better man than me, — than Sir 
Thomas Lucas," shouts Smyth. " Here is .a noble man 
of the blood royal, brother to Lord Beauchamp ; he shall 
be your captain. I myself shall be his assistant. Down 
with Burghley ! Who goes with me, hold up his hand." 

Not one. No hand, no cry is raised. Treason that 
stops is lost ; and whoever is not with the traitor is 
against him. Meshed in a fearful crime, the four horse- 
men prick from the field, part in the slob, and hide them- 
selves from pursuit in the sands of the sea-shore. Smyth 
seeks a boat for France ; but the summer morning dawns 
on him staggering, faint and hopeless on the coast ; when, 
crazed with fear, he skulks home to Baddow, where he 
vainly hopes to hide his face from the local magistrates, 
now hurrying on his track. 

June 19. 7. Sent up to London, lodged in the Tower, Smyth 

7. Smyth to the Council, June 19, 1596, S. P. 0. ; Council to Coke, Fleming, 



NEWS .OF A GEEAT . VICTORY. '89 - 

confesses his crime. Coke and Fleming receive orders IV. 7. 
from the Privy Council . to . call . in Bacon . and Waad, , a 
clerk of the Council, and then to take the evidence, look Junem 
up the law, and, if they find the offence treason, prepare 
articles of indictment against Smyth. These four com- 
missioners meet, find the acts at Colchester treason, and 
report that the offence is punishable by a special statute. 
Bacon, not content, like the Attorney-General and 
Solicitor-General, with setting the law in motion to hang 
this wretched man, asks himself how a country knight, 
not wholly crazed, could ever, have dreamt that, on a cry 
of "Down with sheep and deer," honest men could be 
roused to mutiny against their Queen. To a philosophic 
mind the reason of " a thing is often of larger interest 
than the thing itself. Is there discontent among the yeo- 
men ? If so, is there cause ? He makes a wide and 
sweeping study of this question of Pasturage versus Til- 
lage, of Deer versus Men, which convinces him of the 
cruelty and peril of depopulating hamlets for the benefit 
of a few great lords. This study will produce when Par- 
liament meets again a memorable debate and an extraor- 
dinary change of law. 

8. While Coke and Bacon wind out of Smyth's, con- juiyi6. 
fessions the threads of his interrupted treason, comes in, 

Waad, and Bacon, June 27, 1596, S. P. 0.; Smyth's Examination, June '28, 
1596, S. P. 0.; Abstract of Evidence against Sir John Smyth, July 1596, S. 
P. 0. ' 

8. Carey to Cecil, July 16, 1596, S. P. 0.; Report from Cadiz, July 16, 19, 
21, 1596, S. P. 0. ; Report of the Spoil taken at Cadiz, Aug. 11, 1596, S. P. 0. 



1596. 

July 16, 



90 FRANCIS BACON. 

IV. 8. wave on wave, the news of such a victory as only twice 
or thrice in a thousand years has stirred our English 
phlegm. It conies in first by a Dutch skipper, who puts 
three men on the Devonshire coast. The tale they tell 
is beyond belief: the city of Cadiz taken, an armada 
sunk, Porto Santa Maria wrapt in flame, the Duke of 
Medina Coeli driven from his lines, the road from San 
Lucar to Seville blocked up with the fugitive popula- 
tion of a great province hurrying for their lives. Some 
nine days pass when a Scotch boat drops into Dartmouth 
with the same news. A few hours later still the van 
of the victorious fleet rides into Plymouth Sound, laden 
with such spoil, such heaps of plate, gold, jewels, dam- 
asks, silks, hangings, carpets, scarfs, as living Englishmen 
have only seen in dreams. To hear that the fleet was 
safe would have been joy enough ; this fiery triumph 
of our arms, this glow of spoil and conquest, all but 
drive men mad. 

sept. 9. Most mad of all is Essex. The glory obtained by 
Raleigh and Effingham chafes his pride ; the elevation 
of Cecil in his absence into First Secretary of State dis- 
turbs his power. If much remains to him, much is 
not enough. A warrior who has pushed through the 
Puerta de la Tierra, and seen the loveliest city in the 
west of Europe at his feet, should be suffered, he thinks, 



9. Lambeth MSS. 658, fol. 21; Censures of the Omissions in the Expedition 
to Cadiz, 1596; Camden's Ann. Eliz., 1596; Bacon's Apologie, 19, 20; Deve- 
reux, i. 380. 






1596. 

Sept. 



CECIL'S ELEVATION. 91 

to enjoy a monopoly of power and fame. Yet a sense- IV. 9 
less country shares the credit with his rivals, while a for- 
getful Queen has given the most active place in her gov- 
ernment to his foe. On every side he is robbed of his 
due ; getting neither his fair part of the spoil, nor any- 
thing like his fair part of the reputation. So he sulks 
and pouts ; prints his own account of the voyage ; 
finds fault with the generals and admirals ; tells the 
sailors of the fleet and the soldiers in the camp that 
their success would have been far more prompt, their 
prizes far more abundant, had his command of them 
been unfettered by such a council of fools and cowards. 

But Cecil's rise at home provokes him more than Ra- 
leigh's success abroad. This case is a repetition of Ba- 
con's case. Sir Thomas Bodley, that experienced scholar 
and diplomatist to whose wealth and taste we owe the 
princely library at Oxford, has, like Bacon, been of use 
to the Earl. Essex, who pays his debts in offices and 
grants, has pledged his word that Bodley shall be Sec- 
retary of State. The Queen has not kept her kinsman's 
pledge. On his return from Spain, perceiving that he 
was sent away from London to give Cecil an open field, 
he begins to sulk and storm. He will not stay at court 
to be mocked. He will bury his grief at Wanstead, or 
rush away to the war, and find peace of heart on the 
Spanish pikes ! 

Lady Ann's quick ear and loving eye perceive the 
change that Cecil's elevation, the Earl's discomfiture, 
must work at court. Now that her sister's son, who so 



1596. 



92 FKANCIS BACON. 

IV. 9. bitterly hates the Earl and so sharply resents the con- 
nection of any of his own able kin with the insolent and 
brainless peer, has come to his height of power, she 
writes to warn . Anthony of the evil days in store for 
them, now Cecil is greater than before, and of the need 
for her sons to walk with wary step. It is the last let- 
ter from her pen, closing, as a good woman's letters 
should do, with words of love. 

Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. 

July 10, 1596. 

Now that Sir Kobert is fully stalled in his long longed- 
for secretary's place, I pray God give him a religious, 
w : se, and an upright heart before G-od and man. I 
promise you, son, in my conjectural opinion, you had 
more need now to be more circumspect and advised in 
your troublous discoursings and doings and dealings in 
your accustomed matter, either with or for yourself or 
others, whom you heartily honor, nor without cause. 
He now hath great advantage and strength to intercept, 
prevent, and to say where he hath been or is in. Son, 
be it revelation or suspicion, you know what terms he 
standeth in towards yourself, and would needs have me 
tell you so ; so very vehement he was. Then you are 
said to be wise, and to my comfort I willingly think so ; 
but surely, son, on the other side, for want of some 
experience by action and your tedious unacquaintance 
of your own country by continual chamber and bed- 



LETTER FROM LADY BACON. 93 

keeping, you must need miss of considerate judgment in IV, 9. 
your verbal only travailing. If all were scant sound 
before betwixt the Tta%k [Earl of Essex] and him, 
friends had need to walk more warily in his days ; for 
all affectionate doing he may hurt though pretending 
good. The father and son are joined in power and 
policy. The Lord ever bless you in Christ. Still I 
hearken for Yates ; I doubt somebody hindereth his com- 
ing to me. It were small matter to come speak with me. 
You know what you have to do in regard touching the 
Spaniard. I reck not his displeasure ; God grant he 
mar not all at last with Spanish popish subtlety. • Alas ! 
what I wrote touching the poor sum of five pounds to 
your brother [Francis], I meant but to let you know 
plainly. I would rather nourish than any little way 
weaken true brotherly love, as appear eth manifestly to 
you both. God forbid but that you should always love 
heartily, mutually, and kindly. God commandeth love 
as brethren, besides bond of nature. This present time 
I am brewing but for hasty and home drinking. In 
truth, if I should purposely make a tierce somewhat 
strong for you, I know not how to have carried it 
through. It were pity that you and I both should be 
disappointed. Burn, burn, in any wise. 

From your mother, 

A. B. 

Bacon warns the Earl against hasty speeches and 
offensive acts. Essex swears the rough way is the only 



1596. 

Sept. 



June. 



94 FKANCIS BACON. 

IV. 9. way with Elizabeth. She may be driven, not led. " My 
Lord," says Bacon, " these courses are like hot waters ; 
they may help at a pang, but they will not do for 
daily use." Essex seems crazed. Bacon seeks to dis- 
suade him from this lust of arms; his proper weapon 
being a chamberlain's stick. In happy phrase he tells 
him that this haughty bearing to the Queen, this craving 
for command in camps, may prove to him the two wings 
of Icarus, — wings joined on with wax ; wings which 
may melt as he soars to the sun. 

1597. 10. Essex cools to a man whose talk is so very much 
wiser than he wants to hear. They have no scene, 
no quarrel, no parting; for there are no sympathies to 
wrench, no friendships to dissolve. Essex ceases to seek 
advice at Gray's Inn. They now rarely see each other. 
Bacon is writing his Essays, fagging at the bar, slipping 
into love ; and Essex is still happy to serve him, when 
he can do it at anybody's cost but his own. 

Francis falls into love. Lord Campbell thinks he 
only falls into debt. " He was desperately poor ; he 
therefore made a bold attempt to restore his position by 
matrimony." This is surely in Bantam's vein. " When 
one does n't know," asks the cockfighter, " is not it nat- 
ural to think the worst ? " The lady that Bacon courts 
is rich and of his kin. Elizabeth Hatton, a granddaugh- 
ter of his uncle Burghley, niece of his cousin Cecil, has 

10. Essex to Sir Thomas Cecil, June 24, 1597; Bankes's Story of Corffe Cas- 
tle, 34. 



PROPOSES TO ELIZABETH HATTON. 95 

been left a widow, young, lovely, powerful in her friends IV. 10. 
and in her fine estate. The mistress of Hatton House, 
of Corffe Castle, of Purbeck Isle, a woman whose lovely June ' 
hand is celebrated in Jonson's verse, — 

" Mistress of a finer table 
Hath not history or fable," — 

has, of course, crowds of adorers at her feet : among 
them men no less renowned than William Earl of Pem- 
broke and Francis Bacon. The lady, or her kinsman 
for her, puts aside their suits. Cecil looks on his fair 
niece as a thing to be sold for his own gain. Her youth, 
her beauty, her great inheritance are precious in his 
sight, and the husband for such a woman must be to 
him a strong defender or a useful slave. 

Essex, on the point of sailing for the Azores, writes 
to Sir Thomas and Lady Cecil, saying, if he had a sis- 
ter to give away in marriage, he would gladly give her 
to his friend If this means more than the cheap gen- 
erosity of words, it is most fortunate for Francis that 
Penelope and Dorothy, the Earl's two sisters, are already 
in holy bonds. It would have been bad enough for him 
to have won Lady Hatton ; it would have been awful to 
have stood in the shoes of Northumberland or Rich. 

11. During the Earl's absence at the Azores Effing- Oct. 22. 
ham is made an earl : an affront to Essex more galling 

11. Patent of the Earldom of Nottingham, Oct. 22, 1597, S. P. 0. ; Elizabeth 
to Essex, Oct. 28, 1597, S. P. 0. ; Raleigh to Cecil, July 20, 1597, S. P. 0". ; Ce- 
cil to Essex, July 26, 1597, S. P. 0. ; Devereux, i. 467. 



96 FRANCIS BACON. 

IV. 11. than the rejection, on his suit, of the services of Bacon 
and Bodley ; for this creation robs him, as he thinks, 

Oct 22 °f * ne gl 0I 7 °f Cadiz fight, and permits a man whom 
he loathes to walk before him in the Queen's train and 
sit above him in the House of Peers. When he hears 
of this grant having passed the Seal, he quits his com- 
mand without leave, hurries up to town, and finding 
the thing done, insults the Queen, spurs to Wanstead 
House, defying at once the entreaties of the Council 
to return, and the advice of his best friends to submit. 
A dark and ruinous spirit now stands by his side. 
B-aleigh screens him from blame in his great failure at 
the Azores ; pleading for him with the Queen in almost 
passionate terms ; but Raleigh is the lion in the way 
of Blount, his new and most confidential friend. Un- 
der the lead of Sir Christopher Blount, Essex parts 
from his old Protestant and patriotic allies, from Ba- 
con and Raleigh, from Cecil and Grey, turning his eyes 
and ears to the blandishments of loose women and the 
suggestions of discontented men ; to such wantons as 
Elizabeth Southwell, and Mary Howard, to such plot- 
ters as Robert Catesby and Christopher Wright. A craze 
is in his blood and in his brain. " It comes from his 
mother," sighs the hurt and angry Queen. 

12. As Lettice Knollys, as Countess of Essex, as Count- 
ess of Leicester, as wife of Sir Christopher Blount, this 

12. Papers of Mary Queen of Scots, xvi. 7, 15, 16, 17 ; Camden's Ann. Eliz.. 
632; Craik's Romance of the Peerage, i. 5, 338. 



THE COUNTESS OF LEICESTER. 97 



mother of the Earl has been a barb in Elizabeth's side for IV. 12. 
thirty years. Married as a girl to a noble husband, she 

Oct. 



gave up his honor to a seducer, and there is reason to 



fear she gave her consent to the taking of his life. 
While Devereux lived she deceived the Queen by a scan- 
dalous amour, and after his death by a clandestine mar- 
riage with the Earl of Leicester. While Dudley lived 
she wallowed in licentious love with Christopher Blount, 
his groom of the horse. When her second husband 
expired in agonies at Cornbury, not a gallop from the 
place in which Amy Robsart died, she again mortified 
the Queen by a secret union with her seducer, Blount. 

Her children riot in the same vices. Essex himself, 
with his ring of favorites, is not more profligate than his 
sister Lady Rich. In early youth Penelope Rich was the 
mistress of Sydney, whose stolen love for her is pictured 
in his most voluptuous verse. Sydney is Astrophel, 
Penelope Stella. Since Sydney's death she has lived in 
shameless adultery with Lord Montjoy, though her hus- 
band Lord Rich is still alive. Her sister Dorothy, after 
wedding one husband secretly and against the canon, has 
now married Percy, the wizard Earl of Northumberland, 
whom she leads the life of a dog. 

Save in the Suffolk branch of the Howards, it would 
not be easy to find out of Italian story a group of women 
so detestable as the mother and sisters of the Earl. 

13. The third husband of Lady Leicester is her match 

13. Craik's Rom. Peerage, i. 127, 208. 
5 G 



98 FEANCIS BACON. 

IV. 13. in licentiousness, more than her match in crime. By 
birth a papist, by profession a bravo and a spy, Blount is 
0ct incapable either of feeling for his wretched wife the 
manly love of Essex, or of treating her with the lordly 
courtesy of Leicester. Brutal and rapacious, he has mar- 
ried her, not for her bright eyes, now dim with rheum 
and vice, but for her jewels, her connections, and her 
lands. He cringed to Leicester, that he might sell the 
secrets of his cabinet and enjoy the pleasures of his bed. 
With the same blank conscience, he wrings from the 
widow her ornaments and goods. Chain, armlet, neck- 
lace, money, land, timber, everything that is hers, wastes 
from his prodigal palm. He beats her servants ; he 
thrusts his kinsfolk upon her ; he snatches the pearl from 
her neck, the bond from her strong box. A villain so 
black would have driven a novelist or playwright mad. 
Iago, Overreach, Barabas, all the vile creatures of poetic 
imagination, are to him angels of light. What would have 
been any other man's worst vice is Blount's sole virtue, 
— a ruthless and unreasoning constancy to his creed. 
Fear and shame are to him the idlest of idle words ; and, 
just as he would follow the commands of his general, he 
obeys the dictation of his priest. As a libertine and as a 
spy, his days have been spent in dodging the assassin or 
in cheating the rope.* Waite was sent by Leicester to kill 
the villain who had denied his bed ; Blount repaid the 
courtesy by prompting or conniving at Leicester's death. 
Taught by Cardinal Allen, deep in the Jesuit plots, he 
has more than once put his neck so near the block, that 



1597. 
Oct. 



SIR CHRISTOPHER BLOUNT. ' 99 

a world which neither loves nor understands him hugs IV. 13, 
itself in a belief that he must have bought his safety 
from arrest and condemnation by selling to Walsingham 
or Cecil the blood of better and braver men. 

14. This bravo has subdued the imperious Countess of 
Leicester to his will. She has been to him an easy, if not 
an ignoble prey ; for the profligate woman dotes on her 
tyrant ; so that she who could barely stoop to the kiss of 
Devereux and Dudley, prides herself on the blessing of 
being robbed and cuffed by a wretch without grace, accom- 
plishments, or parts. When, for his private gain and the 
promotion of his faith, it serves Blount's turn to win over 
Essex the same brutal ascendency which he has estab- 
lished over Lady Leicester, he feels no pang of heart 
in turning her tenderness as a mother into the abomina- 
ble instrument of his guile. His bold, coarse arts are 
soon successful with the giddy youth ; who draws closer 
and closer to his mother's husband, puts him into places 
of trust near his person, listens to his counsels, makes 
associates of his male and female friends, gets him a com- 
mand in the army, and gives him a seat in the House of 
Commons. 

Bacon and Blount propose to Essex the two courses 
most opposed to each other : Bacon«the abandonment of 

14. Devereux, i. 281; Council Reg., Mar. 16, 1600. The frequent recurrence 
of the Privy Council Register in these notes reminds me that I ought to express, 
and in the warmest manner, my many obligations to Henry Reeve, Esq., of the 
Privy Council Office. I owe to his ready and unvarying kindness an easy ac- 
cess to the sources of some of the most important facts in this volume. 



100 FRANCIS BACON. 

IV. 14. his military pomp, of his opposition to the Queen, and the, 
acceptance now and forever of that great part which Lei- 

1597 

' cester had filled for so many years ; Blount the pursuit of 
war and glory, so as to dazzle the multitude, overawe the 
Queen, find employments for his companions, and con- 
solidate his personal power. Bacon would make him 
chief of the Protestant nation, Blount of a discontented 
and disloyal Roman Catholic sect. One asks him to be 
grave, discreet, and self-denying. The other fires his 
blood with maddening and dramatic hopes. He cleaves 
to Blount, who tempts him with the things for which his 
restless and evil nature pants. He begins to toy with 
treason. He admits Roman Catholics of sullied reputa- 
tion and suspected loyalty into his confidence. He even 
interferes to protect from justice the traitor Sir John 
Smyth. 

Oct 24. 15. At the end of those four years for which Bacon 
has compelled the Government to accept of subsidies, the 
money being spent, writs for a new parliament go out. 
Bacon now stands for Ipswich, the family county town 
and the aim of his warmest ambition ; having for his 
colleague in the representation Michael Stanhope, a 
grand-nephew of Lady Ann. His kinsmen muster strong 
in Westminster. Anthony sits for Oxford, Nathaniel for 
Lynn ; Henry Neville, his sister's son, for Liskeard ; Sir 
Edward Hoby, his cousin, for Rochester ; Sir Robert 

15. Mem. of Stages of Bills in Parliament, Oct. 1597, S. P. 0. ; Willis, Not. 
Pari., iii. 137, 139, 140, 141, 142; D'Ewes, 549; Townshend, 102. 



MOTION ON THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 101 

Cecil, also his cousin, for Herts. Benedict Barnham, of IV. 15. 
Cheapside, whose pretty little daughter, Alice, Bacon will 
years hence make his wife, is returned for Yarmouth, 0ct 
having represented Minehead in the former Parliament. 
Raleigh sits for Dorsetshire ; and Christopher Yelverton, 
the Speaker nominate, for Northants. Sir Christopher 
Blount, by command from the Earl of Essex, serves for 
Staffordshire. In this new session the member for Ips- 
wich sits, not, as Lord Campbell writes, a burgess pros- 
trate, penitent, under the royal ban, anxious by his 
silence and servility to efface the recollection of his for- 
mer speech. No voice is raised so often or so loud as 
his. Again he speaks for ample grants ; ag^ain he votes 
with the reforming squires ; again he wages battle of 
privilege against the Privy Council and the House of 
Lords. He serves on the Committee of Monopolies. He 
seconds Sir Francis Hastings's motion for amending the 
penal laws. But the great contest of this session, the one 
that makes it memorable in English history, is fought on 
a bill of his own, framed on the treason of Sir John 
Smyth, and meant to arrest the decay of tillage, the 
perishing of the yeomen population from the English 
soil. 

16. Yelverton chosen Speaker, # Bacon rises with a Nov. 
motion on the State of the Country. State of the 



16. Summary Articles of the Bill for Maintenance of Husbandry, Oct. 1597, 
S. P. 0.; D'Ewes 550-53; Bacon's History of the Reign of Henry VH., Works, 
vi. 94. 



102 FRANCIS BACON. 

IV. 16. Country means to him the relation of the people to 
the land. The population lives on the soil. Mining is 
Noy ' in its cradle, though the iron ordnance of Sussex and 
Arden has been heard on the Rhine and the Theiss ; 
manufactures are few and scant, though the dyed wools 
of Tiverton and Dunster have begun to find markets 
on the Elbe and the Scheldt. To grow corn, to •herd 
cattle, to brew ale and press cider, to shear sheep, to 
fell and carry wood, are the main occupations of every 
English shire. The farms are small and many ; the 
farmers neither rich nor poor. The breeder of kine, 
the grower of herbs and wheat, is a yeoman born ; not 
too proud to put hand to plough, not too pinched to 
keep horse and pike. A link between the noble and 
the peasant, he is of the very thew and marrow of the 
state ; a man to stand at your shoulder in the day of 
work or in the day of fight. This sturdy class is 
dropping the plough for the weaver's shuttle and the 
tailor's goose ; the rage for enclosing woods and com- 
mons, for impaling parks, for changing arable land into 
pasture, for turning holdings for life into tenancies at 
will, having driven thousands of yeomen from fields 
and downs which their fathers tilled before the Con- 
queror came in. Whole districts have been cleared. 
Where homesteads smoked and harvests once waved, 
there is now, in many parts, a broad green landscape, 
peopled by a shepherd and his dog. Where the may- 
pole sprung, and the village green crowed with frolic, 
are now a sheep-walk or a park of deer. 



INCREASE OF PASTURE. 103 

17. The loss of this martial race, the bowmen of IV. 17. 
Cressy, the billmen of Boulogne, is a grievous weak- 
ness for the Crown ; thinning the musters for defence, N(m 
swelling the materials for mutinies and plots. Nor has 
this change escaped the Jesuits, or those who live to 
watch and thwart the Jesuits. A paper of instructions 
for the Roman Catholic priests and gentry, On the 
means of recovering England to the Holy See, lays stress 
on the discontent caused by these enclosures of com- 
mons and village greens. Smyth used this argument 
at Colchester. The Catholic peers have not been slow 
to increase an evil which their party treats as a means 
of future good to the Church. Dr. James, the Dean 
of Durham, has had to warn Burghley of the conse- 
quences of this waste of tillage and population in the 
two shires of Durham and Northumberland ; shires in 
which two or three Roman Catholic earls own nearly 
all the soil. The yeomen have embraced the national 
faith, while most of the old nobility cling to the for- 
eign creed ; and a fanatic like Percy or Seymour may 
often find a legal form of persecution in the pretence 
of converting his arable land into pasture, or of form- 
ing a new park. But if this rage for enclosure is 
sometimes abused into a means of sectarian spite, it is 
very far from being confined to the Roman Catholic 
lords. From Durham to Devon the tenants are chased 

17. Discourse of the Providence necessary to be had for the setting up of the 
Catholic Faith when God shall call the Queen out of this life, Aug. 1600, S. P. 
0. ; Dr. James to Burghley, May 26, 1597, S. P. 0. ; Stillman to Cecil, Jan 2, 
1600, S. P. O. 



1597. 
Nov. 



104 FRANCIS BACON. 

IV. 17. from their farms that sheep may feed and deer disport. 
Ire fills and inflames the yeomen's veins. In every 
park wall they see a menace, in every doe the sub- 
stitute of a man. They throw down the pales and 
ensnare the deer. A youth of Stratford-upon-Avon kills 
his buck in Charlcote Park. A crowd from Enfield 
scours the preserves of Hatfield Chace. Every spark 
becomes his own Robin Hood, and cheap haunches of 
venison smoke on the tables of Cheapside and Pater- 
noster Row. To snare deer is, in all the popular com- 
edies and songs, an heroic protest, not at all a crime. 

18. Unlike the Jesuits and the Jesuitized peers, whose 
purpose it may be to thin the fibre and relax the power 
of England in the field, Bacon seeks to arrest this evil 
in its germ. Placed by his birth between the nobles 
and the commons, he shares neither the pride of the 
superior nor the envy of the inferior rank. His genius, 
too, is singularly free from taint of sect or class. He 
is wholly English. His glory is to reconcile classes 
through reform, to strengthen the Crown by justice. 
Concord, tolerance, loyalty at home ; sway, extension, 
trade abroad, — these are the points at which he aims. 
Not so the Jesuits. They have begun to despair of aid 
from Spain ; after the wreck of the Armada, the sack of 
Cadiz, they fear lest England may be found too strong 
for subjection to Rome by either foreign guile or for- 

18. Discourse of Providence necessary to be had for the setting up of thf 
Catholic Faith, Aug. 1600, S. P. 0. 



1597. 

Nov. 



BILL FOE MAINTENANCE OF HUSBANDRY. 105 

eign steel. They turn their eyes, therefore, to the men IV. 18. 
with sore hearts and brawny arms, and, taking note of 
the discontent among the yeomen, begin to count with 
confidence on the approaching days of civil war. 

19. Bacon's plan for staying the decline of population 
is to convert this new grass-land into arable, to put these 
new parks under the plough. A commttee of the House 
of Commons, named to consider this plan, votes in its 
favor, when the House commissions its author to frame 
and introduce his bill. He brings in two bills : one 
for the Increase of Tillage and Husbandry ; one for 
the Increase of People. These bills provide that the 
more land shall be cleared without special reason and 
a special license. They provide that all land turned 
into pasture since the Queen's accession, no less a pe- 
riod than forty years, shall be taken from the deer and 
sheep within eighteen months, and restored to the yeo- 
man and the plough. 

20. If the Commons pass these bills at once, the Peers 
receive them with amazement. Ask the Shrewsburys, 
Worcesters, and Northumberlands to dispark their chases 
and restore the plough ! As well ask Regan for the 
hundred knights.. At once they name a committee of 
Peers to oppose the two bills ; which committee calls 

19. Summary Articles of the Bill for Maintenance of Husbandry, Oct. 1597, 
S. P. 0. ; Breviate of a Bill entitled " An Act for the Increase of People for the 
Service and Defence of the Realm," Dec. 20, 1597, S. P. 0. 

20. Lords' Jour., ii. 212, 217. 

5* 



106 FRANCIS BACON. 

IV. 20. to its aid the legal dexterity of Chief Justice Popham 
and Attorney-General Coke. 

1597. 

Dec. 21. Though the foreign enemy is at the gate and 

every true man at his post, Yere in the Low Countries, 
Raleigh and Montjoy at Plymouth, Essex still sulks and 
pouts at Wanstead. In vain the Lord-Treasurer coaxes. 
In vain the Earl's friends remonstrate with him on the 
wickedness of dividing or distracting his country at such 
a time. In vain they beg him to put aside his wrongs, 
if he has any wrongs, until the danger of a fresh inva- 
sion from Spain, of a fresh massacre in Ireland, shall 
have passed away. The Queen declares herself hurt 
more by this desertion than by his failures when at sea. 
But nothing moves him until Bacon's patriotic bills come 
up before the Peers, when he hastens to town, and, 
receiving the nomination of Earl Marshal, takes his seat 
in the House of Lords. As he had not been named to 
the hostile committee, he begs that his name may be 
added to the list. 

For this committee Coke draws up thirty-one legal 
objections to Bacon's bills. Thus armed to contest his 
logic and deny his law, the Peers send Black Rod down 
to request a conference with the Lower House. 

22. Aware of these hostile preparations in the other 

21. Burghley to Essex, Nov. 9, 19, 30, 1597, S. P. 0. ; Remonstrance with 
Essex, Nov. 16, 1597, S. P. 0. ; Howard, Montjoy, and Raleigh to the Council, 
Nov. 9, 1597, S P. 0.; Hunsdon to Essex, Nov. 1597, S. P. 0. 

22. Lords' Jour., ii. 217; Statutes 39 Elizabethse, c. 1 and 2. 



FURTHER GRANT FROM THE QUEEN. 107 



House, the Commons, ere entering into conference, wish IV. 22. 
to have a copy of Coke's thirty-one legal objections to 
their bills. The Lords refuse to give it. But Bacon Jan ' 
will not bend ; if the Commons are to meet objections, 
they must know what these objections are. No copy, no 
conference ! After much debate the Peers consent to 
give their written answer to the bills when the gentle- 
men of the Commons shall come up to confer. 

Conference now meets, the burgesses employing Bacon 
as their champion, the barons employing Coke. After 
day on day of talk, after many proposals and some 
amendments, Coke gives way, and the worsted Peers 
accept the two bills with some slight modifications of Feb. 
title and clause. 

The bills did not pass, says Lord Campbell. 

They are in the Statute Book, 39 of Elizabeth, 1 
and 2. 

23. No love for enclosures which thin her hamlets of Feb. 27. 
their strength prevents the Queen from receiving most 
graciously and rewarding most nobly this momentous 
service to her crown. Bacon knows her well. A law 
case having been referred to some of the judges and 
counsel, she inquires his mind on the course she is pur- 
suing. " Madam," says he, " my mind is known ; I am 
against all enclosures, and especially against enclosed 
justice." Only two weeks after signing her name to his 
bill for replacing the yeoman on the soil from which 

23. Resuscitatio, 40 ; Patent Rolls, 40 Elizabethse, Pars iii. 26. 



108 FRANCIS BACON. 

IV. 23. he has been driven, she sets her hand to the grant of a 
third estate. This act of her princely grace confers on 

Feb * Bacon the rectory and church at Cheltenham, together 
with the chapel at Charlton Kings, in the lovely valley 
nestling under Cleve and Leckhampton hills ; a valley 
not yet famed for those mineral springs, those shady 
walks, those pretty spas and gardens, which in the days 
of Victoria have transformed Lansdowne and Pittville 
• into suburbs of delight ; yet rich in the voluptuous 
charms of nature, blessed with a prodigal fertility of 
corn and fruit, of kine and sheep. The rectory, the 
chapelry, are noble gifts. With them are granted all 
the land, houses, meadows, pastures, gardens, rents, — all 
services, — all views of frankpledge, courts leet, fines, 
heriots, mortuaries, and reliefs, — all tithes of fruit and 
grain, — all profits, all royalties, — save only the usual 
crown rights reserved on crown lands, with a fee to the 
Archdeacon of Gloucester, and an obligation to support 
two priests and two deacons, — on the payment of a 
nominal rent of seventy-five pounds a year. 



THE IRISH PLOT. 109 



CHAPTER Y 



THE IRISH PLOT 



1598. 
Sept. 



1. Under the eyes of Blount, Essex parts more and Y. 1 
more from the good cause and from those who love it. 
His horses are not now seen in Gray's Inn Square. 
The correspondence with Anthony Bacon drops. The 
barges which float to Essex stairs bring other company 
than the Yeres and Raleighs, the Cecils, Nottinghams, 
and Greys. To sup with bold, bad men ; to listen when 
he ought to strike ; to waste his manhood on the frail 
Southwells and Howards, have become the feverish 
habits of his life. Sir Charles Danvers, Sir Charles and 
Sir Jocelyn Percy, Sir William Constable, Captain John 
Lee, — all discontented and disloyal Roman Catholics, 
— are now his household and familiar friends. The 
young apostate Lord Monteagle sits at his board ; though 
merely, as is guessed from what comes after, in the 
shameful character of Cecil's tool and spy. But in the 
rear of Danvers and Percy, Constable and Lee, wicked 
and dangerous as these men are, lurks a crowd of ruf- 



1. Lodge's Illustrations, ii. 545; Devereux, i. 475; Birch's Memoirs of Queen 
Elizabeth, ii. 70; Vaughan to Cecil, Jan. 29, 1598, S. P. 0.; Vaughan to Hes- 
keth, Jan. 29, 1598, S. P. 0. ; Council Reg., Mar. 16, 1600. 



110 FRANCIS BACON. 

V. 1. fians at whose side they seem respectable. Tresham 

is seen at Essex House. Catesby sits at the Earl's 
1598. 
Sept. table. All the slums and jails of London stir with a 

new life. As a Privy Councillor, Essex can send into 
the prisons and fetch their inmates to his private house. 
Light breaks into the cells of Bridewell and the Fleet. 
Sir John Smyth is liberated on bond, Essex himself 
coming forward as the traitor's friend and surety. 
Father Thomas Wright, a Jesuit agent, deep in the se- 
crets, high in the confidence, of the Courts of Rome and 
Madrid, who has been for many months in trouble, at first 
confined in Dean Goodman's house, but of late trans- 
ferred to a common jail, steals after dusk from the Bride- 
well to Essex House for secret interviews with the Earl 
and Blount. Nor is the bustle limited to the London tav- 
erns and the London jails. The doughs of Lancashire, 
the ridges and heaths of Wales, send up to London the 
most restless of their recusants and priests. Vaughan, 
the Bishop of Chester, notes a mysterious change in 
that Papist district, and warns the head of the Govern- 
ment that he must look for sudden storms. The recu- 
sants of his diocese, he says, refuse to pay their usual 
fines, defy the clergy and magistrates, and talk of the 
support which they expect from new and powerful 
friends. When pressed too hard, instead of bowing to 
the laws as they have been wont to do, they jump to 
horse and spur away. 

2. The gang of Papist conspirators who now begin 



THE IKISH PLOT. Ill 

to gather into force round the Earl of Essex, propose V. 2. 
to themselves not only to escape from fine and impris- 
onment, but to dethrone the Queen, to restore the g "" 
faggot to Smithfield and the mass to St. Paul's. They 
hope to effect this change by a military surprise and 
a secret understanding with the Pope. Essex tells the 
Jesuit Father Wright, in their midnight meetings, that 
he could become a Roman Catholic, were it not that 
the Roman Catholics have always been against him. 
Wright assures him that the Roman Catholics will 
now be his best friends. The plotters lay down their 
plans. To surprise the Queen they must have the com- 
mand of an armed force ; Raleigh must be killed ; a 
military faction formed, an army raised, and the places 
of trust secured to the principal leaders in the plot. 

3. As the Queen will trust Essex with no more regi- Oct. 
ments for Rouen, no more ships for Spain, he begs for 
a command against the Irish kernes. Ireland is ablaze. 
That Hugh O'Neile, son of the bastard of Dundalk, 
who owes to the policy and generosity of Queen Eliza- 
beth his life, his education, his nobility, even his ascen- 
dency in his sept, has turned on his benefactress : lay- 
ing down his earldom of Tyrone ; assuming the sover- 
eign and rebellious style of The O'Neile ; raising the 
unkempt, unclothed Ulster savages ; and filling the val- 

2. Examination of Thomas Wright, July 24, 1600, S. P. 0. ; Abstract of Evi- 
dence against the Earl of Essex [July 22, 1600], S. P. O. 

3. Irish Correspondence, 1595 - 98, S. P. O. ; Annals of the Four Masters, 
591-645; Council Reg., Oct. 29, 1595, July 19, 1598. 



1598. 
Oct. 



112 FEANCIS BACON. 

V. 3. leys from Inishowen to Monaghan and Down with the 
tumult of war. Fires burn on the hill-tops. Churches 
are profaned, innocent homesteads razed. The Gallo- 
glass, mounted on his brisk marron, pricks through the 
country, spearing his enemies, driving off their kine. 
A horde of ferocious kernes, shaggy and ill-fed, their 
arms a skean and pike, their dress a blanket or a shirt, 
plunge into the houses of English gentlemen, wreaking 
such woe and shame on the Protestant settlers as pen 
of man refuses to describe. An English force keeps 
front to the rebellious horde, but the fire darts out in 
a hundred places. Connaught kindles into insurrection ; 
Munster defies the Saxon ; Ulster presses on the Pale ; 
Spanish ships stand off the coast ; Spanish regiments 
are forming at Ghent and at the Groyne. A day may 
bring the Basques, the Walloons, and Pandours to Kin- 
sale. Drogheda is in danger. Dublin itself is not safe. 

4. Shakespeare gives the English passion voice : — 

" Now for our Irish wars ! 
We must supplant these rough, rug-headed kernes, 
Which live like venom where no venom else, 
But only they, hath privilege to live ! " 

So cries the English king in that new play of Rich- 
ard the Second, which is now drawing crowds of citi- 
zens and courtiers to the Globe. Troops are being 

4. Shakespeare's Kichard II., editions of 1597 and 1598 ; Camden, Ann. Eliz., 
1598; Chamberlain to Carleton, May 4, 17, 30, 1598, S. P. 0.; Council Keg., 
July 19, Dec. 22, 1598. 



1598. 
Oct. 



TROOPS LEVIED FOR IRELAND. 113 

raised and fines imposed for this new war ; the recusants V. 4. 
who will not fight for their country against their creed, 
— such men as Tresham, Talbot, Rookwood, and Throck- 
morton, — being mulcted in heavy rates. The force is 
of imposing strength. Two thousand veterans come 
home from the camp of Yere, their ranks filled up by 
a levy of youngsters from the loom and plough. In 
all, some twenty thousand horse and foot are on the 
march. 

Who shall conduct them to the coasts of Down, the 
passes of the Foyle ? 

5. Essex asserts his claim. Those who would see 
the fire of the insurrection stamped under foot propose to 
send out Raleigh, Sydney, or Montjoy. But events at 
Court disturb the preparations against O'Neile. The 
great Lord Burghley dies, leaving vacant the Treasury 
and the Court of Wards. Essex, as usual, wants them 
both ; and Cecil, who thinks that offices held by his 
father ought to descend upon himself, becomes, as he 
has been before, a secret and powerful advocate for his 
rival's nomination to a distant post. For a time the 
Queen will hear of no such a thing ; yet, as Raleigh 
will not go, and Yere is in the field, Essex, with an 
underground and treacherous aid from Cecil, gains his 
suit. 



5. Chamberlain to Carleton, May 30, Aug. 30, Nov. 8, 1598, S. P. 0. ; Lyt- 
ton to Carleton, Aug. 29, 1598, S. P. 0.; Mathews to Carleton, Sept. 15, 1598, 
S. P. 0. 

H 



1598 
Oct. 



114 FKANCIS BACON. 

V. 6. 6. Cecil's beautiful young niece still wears her wid- 
ow's weeds : a prize with which he may either bribe an 
enemy or fix a friend. She has rejected Pembroke as 
well as Bacon. To the surprise of her gay and youth- 
ful suitors, she allows her uncle Cecil to buy with her 
hand the unscrupulous arts and venomous tongue of 
Coke. A first wife, who brought him love and money, 
not yet cold in her grave, the grisly old bear of an 
Attorney-General marries this dainty and wilful dame. 
How she is persuaded to such a match no soul can tell. 
Old, grim, penurious, every way opposite to herself and 
to everything that she seems to like, he has neither 
the wit that wins nor the fame that fills a lady's ear. 
Wags whisper that she hopes to be able to break his 
heart. He, too, is rich. She has got one fortune through 
Sir William Hatton, why not a second fortune through 
Sir Edward Coke ? Her kinsman's motives are, no one 
doubts, coarse. He has need for such an instrument as 
Coke, — - close, supple, learned, grinding, cold to his de- 
pendants, cringing to his superiors. Nor is he disap- 
pointed in the match. On Coke's marriage into the 
Cecil house, though the wife whom he vows to love 
rejects his name and destroys his peace, he becomes 
to Cecil and to Cecil's faction a brutal and obsequious 
slave. 

7. At a private meeting of the Privy Council held at 

6. Autobiographical Notes of Coke in Harl. MSS. 6687, transcribed by John 
Bruce for the Collectanea Top. et Gen., vi. 108. 



1599. 
Mar. 8. 



PLAN FOR CALMING IRELAND. 115 

Essex House, only Cecil, Fortescue, and Buckhurst pres- V. 7. 
ent, a commission for the lord-lieutenancy is drawn. Es- 
sex has had no speech with Bacon for eighteen months. 
Their ways now lie apart. In the conferences on his 
bills for restoring tillage and increasing population they 
stood in hostile ranks ; yet, on the eve of his fatal voy- 
age to •Ireland, Essex rides once more, and for the last 
time now, to Gray's Inn Square. Had he come to seek 
counsel, no man could have given him safer. More than 
any one alive — more than Chichester or Montjoy — 
Bacon sees through the Irish question. Sure that Ulster 
will not be calmed by the sword and the rope, that no 
dash from Cork to Coleraine will make a savage sept, 
ruled by a Brehon law, prefer husbandry to theft, his 
plan is to clear the forests, to drain the bogs, to lay out 
roads, to build ports and havens, to plant new towns. 
His hope lies in the plough, not in the sword. 

" We must supplant these rough, rug-headed kernes." 

He would have the great officers of the Queen's govern- 
ment and army live in the country, build in it their 
houses, as Sir Arthur Chichester, whom Cecil has sent 
from Flanders to Dublin, afterwards builds his house on 
the Lough of Belfast. But a man like the Earl of Essex, 
living only in the air of courts and the light of camps, 
has neither temper, hardihood, nor patience for such a 



7. Council Reg., Mar. 8, 1599; Bacon's Remains, 39, 48; Certain Considera- 
tions touching the Plantation in Ireland, 1606 ; Bacon's Apologie, 23 ; Essex to 
Cecil, Mar. 29, 1599, Add. MSS. 4160. 



1599. 
March. 



116 FRANCIS BACON. 

V. 7. work. Bacon tells him to give up an enterprise in which 
he can neither serve his country nor secure himself from 
shame and loss. Essex has not come to learn. With 
soul corrupted by disloyalty, he turns his back on the one 
honest voice which even yet might have saved his fortune 
and his fame from wreck. 

8. Father Wright consults Cresswell and Parsons, the 
experienced chiefs of the English conspiracy in Madrid 
and Rome, on these bold and perilous plots. The Jesuit 
Fathers, doubtful if it be not sin and folly to shed Cath- 
olic blood to raise Essex to a throne, urge him through 
Wright to adopt the Infanta's claim in preference to his 
own ; a course to which Essex, when pressed by Wright, 
most sternly demurs, as becomes a descendant of John 
of Gaunt. Philip and Clement, less deep in guile than 
the Jesuits, agree to recognize, and if need be to aid, a 
rebellion of the Earl and his partisans against the Queen, 
on this understanding, — that Essex, when king, shall 
become reconciled to the Church, shall leave Ireland to 
be ruled by O'Neile as viceroy, shall abandon the Prot- 
estant Netherlanders, shall yield up Raleigh's conquests 
and plantations in America, and shall recognize the 
rights of Spain to an exclusive possession of both the 
Indies. It is understood that the Irish army is to effect 
this plot, of which all the details are to be settled with 
O'Neile. 

8. Abstract of the Evidence against Essex [July 22, 1600], S. P. 0.; Exam- 
ination of Wright, July 24, 1600, S. P. O. 



ESSEX LORD-DEPUTY. 117 

9. Twenty thousand men march to the coast and cross V. 9. 
the sea. Lee, Danvers, Percy have all commands in this 
force. Constable, broken for bad conduct, is restored April ' 
by Essex to his rank. Father Wright begs hard to be 
taken with them ; but, although a Privy Councillor may 
fetch a prisoner to his house, a lord-lieutenant of Ireland 
has no power to empty the London jails. All that he 
can do for Wright is to get him removed from Bridewell 
to the Clink. 

From the hour of his quitting Whitehall Essex assumes 
the powers of a sovereign prince. On his way to the coast 
he sends back Lord Montjoy. Montjoy is his friend ; the* 
yet nearer friend of his sister, Lady Rich. For love of her, 
Montjoy has joined in opposition to Raleigh on the right 
hand, to Cecil on the left ; but neither friendship for 
Essex, nor love for Lady Rich, would draw a man so firm 
in faith, so loyal to the Crown, to league with a gang of 
Papists against the Queen. Essex sends him back. 

From Drayton Bassett, where Blount and Lady Leices- 
ter live, Essex has the effrontery to write for leave to ap- 
point Blount his Marshal of the Camp. A marshal of the 
camp is the second in command, the first in activity and 
influence ; to put such a fellow as Blount in such' a place, 
the Queen indignantly demurs. There is Sir Henry 
Brounker, an officer of talent and experience ; let him 
be our marshal. Essex pouts and sulks. " If she grant 
me not this favor," he writes to Cecil, " I am maimed 

9. Council Reg., Mar. 11, April 2, 1599; Essex to Cecil, Add. MSS. 4160; 
Abstract of Evidence against Essex, July 22, 1600, S. P. 0. 



118 FKANCIS BACON. 

V. 9. of my right arm." Cecil takes care he shall have his 
way. 

1599. 

May. 10. When he lands in Dublin he casts to the four winds 
his commission and instructions. One of his first and 
most insolent acts is to appoint the young Earl of South- 
ampton his Master of the Horse. This friend and patron 
of Shakespeare is not a Papist, not an ally of Blount. 
He is a patriot, though not a wise one ; a Protestant, 
though not a zealous one. Heady, amorous, quarrelsome, 
swift to go right or wrong as his passions tempt him, he 
has vexed and grieved the Queen by falling madly and 
licentiously in love with Mistress Yernon, one of her 
beautiful maids of honor, and filling her court with the 
fame of his amours. In this offence against modesty lie 
has been abetted by the young lady's first cousin Lord 
Essex, himself too frail as regards the passions, and too 
familiar with his mother's vices and his sister's infidelities 
to feel the shame brought on his kin by a scandal which 
after all may end in marriage. Sent away from London, 
Southampton had returned in secret, and had married 
the lady without her sovereign's knowledge. For these 
offences he had been ordered into free custody. Break- 
ing his gage of honor, he has stolen away to Dublin, 
where the Earl, in place of sending back the Queen's 
fugitive, gives him the welcome which a prince at 



10. Cecil to Southampton, Sept. 3, 1598, S. P. 0. ; Council to Essex, June 
10, 1599, S. P. 0.; Elizabeth to Essex, July 19, 1599, S. P. 0.; Devereux, 
i. 474. 



ISSUE OF IKISH CAMPAIGN. 119 

war might give to a deserting general from the hostile V. 10. 
camp. 

1599. 

11. Every one knows the issue of this Irish campaign : Aug. 
a lost summer, a corrupted army, a traitorous truce. In- 
stead of smiting O'Neile, Lee arranges an interview on 

the Lagan, at which the English and Irish rebels discuss 
their terms and enter into league. Blount hails his fel- 
lows in the Celtic camp. Like the Irish traitors, he ab- 
hors the Protestant Queen, not only as the most powerful 
enemy of their church, but as an insolent sovereign who 
has spared their lives. They propose to carry out the 
Papal scheme, giving England to Essex, Ireland to O'Neile, 
The Desmonds and Fitzmaurices, not less than the O'Don- 
nels and O'Kanes, are privy to a league in which the Celts 
drive a bargain with their allies ; for while the Roman 
Catholics are to get the whole of Ireland to themselves, 
they claim immunities in England equal to those of the 
rival creed. They are to enjoy on the Thames, not alone 
freedom of conscience, but street processions of the host 
and public performance of the mass. 

12. Essex breaks up his camp at Drogheda ; hurries sept. 
to Dublin, Blount at his side, Danvers, Constable, Lee 



11. Annals of the Four Masters, 646-654; Blount's Confessions, State Trials, 
i. 1415. 

12. Annals of the Four Masters, 655 ; Blount's Confessions, State Trials, i. 
1415; Bacon's Notes to Camden, Works, vi. 359; Memorandum of Pi-ecaution- 
ary Measures, Aug. 1599, S. P. 0. ; List of Army in Kent and Essex, Aug. 1599, 
S. P. 0. 



120 FRANCIS BACON. 

V. 12. at his heels ; crosses the sea, leaving Ireland without 
an army or a government ; the English settlers aghast 
g. ' at this desertion, the Ulster rebels elate with joy. At 
Milford Haven they receive intelligence which breaks 
down all their plans. The country rings with arms. 
While they have been conspiring with O'Neile, the Privy 
Council, under guise of preparing to repel an expected 
landing of the Spaniards, have drawn out the musters, 
set the trainbands in motion, filled the city with chosen 
troops. Wags have mocked and jested over this invis- 
ible Armada ; but Essex lands at Milford Haven to find 
his road to London barred by a truly formidable force. 
Nottingham covers the capital with a camp of six thou- 
sand horse and foot. Twenty-five thousand men answer 
to the roll in Kent and Essex. Under such a change 
of affairs, even Blount dissuades a march on London. 
The road is long ; halberdiers cannot fly, like Imogen, 
on the wings of love ; and the very maddest of the 
plotters knows that the Protestant gentlemen of Glou- 
cester, Wilts, and Berks will not stare idly on while 
gangs of mutinous troopers, led by Papist captains, march 
past to dethrone their Queen. With the whole army of 
Drogheda at their backs, they could not force their way 
through six or eight warlike shires. Better, says Blount, 
prick on alone. A chance remains that by dash and 
swiftness Essex may surprise the Queen, put his friends 
in power, and return to Dublin to mature his plans. 

Sept. 28. To horse, to horse ! No pause in the ride till he flings 
himself, splashed and faint, at his sovereign's feet. 



ESSEX IN CUSTODY. 121 

13. Lee, Daiivers, Constable, Davis, spur into London. V. 13. 
News-writers stare at the swarms of captains and com- 

1599 

manders from the Irish camp which suddenly hustle 0ct ' 
through the taverns of Paternoster Row and fill the pit 
of the theatre, where Rutland and Southampton are 
daily seen, and where Shakespeare's company, in the 
great play of Richard II., have for more than a year 
been feeding the public eye with pictures of the dep- 
osition of kings. But the plotters have met their 
mates. The Earl is in charge. From the presence of 
his Queen he has passed into custody ; when a solemn 
act of the Privy Council having declared him unfit to 
discharge the duties of Earl Marshal, Privy Councillor, 
and Master of the Ordnance, a writ from the Star-Cham- 1600. 
ber cites him to answer for his suspicious dealings with 
O'Neile. This citation he disobeys. After a brief con- 
finement in the house of Lord Keeper Egerton, he is 
placed in permanent free custody in his own great man- 
sion in the Strand. 

14. The Council hastens to repair the evil done in 
Dublin. Montjoy goes over as Lord Deputy. Stern 
letters recall the Lords Justices and magistrates of Ire- 
land to their duty. Threads of the great conspir- 

13. Kowland White, Oct. 3, 11, 1599, in Sydney Papers, ii. 130, 132 ; Deve- 
reux's Lives of the Earls of Essex, ii. 76 - 117 ; Speeches in the Star Chamber 
on Essex's Expedition to Ireland, Nov. 1599, S. P. 0.; Essex to Eliz., Feb. 11, 
22, 1600, S. P. O. 

14. Wood's Confessions, Jan. 20, 1599-1600, S. P. O.; Council Keg., Feb. 2, 
1600. 

6 



Feb. 



122 FKANCIS BACON. 

V. 14. acy soon appear. Among the witnesses against, Essex, 
Thomas Wood, a nephew of Lord Fitzmaurice, makes 
this declaration : — 



1600 
Feb. 



He saith that, happening to be with the Lord Fitz- 
maurice, Baron of Lixnaw, at his house of Lixnaw, be- 
tween Michaelmas and Allhallowtide, the said Baron 
walking abroad with the said Wood asked him what force 
the Earl of Essex was of in England. He answered he 
could not tell, but said he was well beloved of the com- 
monalty. Then said the Baron that the Earl was gone 
for England, and had discharged many of the companies 
of Ireland ; and that if her Majesty were dead he should 
be King of England and O'Neile to be Viceroy of Ireland ; 
and whensoever he should have occasion and could send 
for them, he would send him eight thousand men out of 
Ireland. The said Wood asked the Baron how he knew 
that, and he answered that the Earl of Desmond sent him 
word so. 

Thomas Wood. 

This statement, wholly in the handwriting of Wood, re- 
mains in the State Paper Office. 
Below it Cecil has written : — 

This confession and declaration was made before us 
whose names are underwritten this 20th of January, 1599 
(1600) ; and after being charged of us severally and 
jointly to declare nothing but truth upon his soul and 



1600. 
Feb. 



ESSEX IN CUSTODY. 123 

conscience, as he would answer it at the latter day, he V. 14, 
hath both protested this to be true that he hath written, 
and that he is a Christian and would not say an untruth 
in this kind for all the good in the world ; and for proof 
thereof hath again set his hand in our presence. 

Thomas Wood. 

T. Buckhurst. 

Nottingham. 

Robert Cecil. 

J. Fortescue. 

15. The world parts suddenly from the fallen man. March - 
Those who know or suspect the depth of his guilt shun 
him as one who is lost past hope ; those who see no more 
than his disgrace fall off from a losing cause. Cecil 
spurns his advances ; when the old Countess of Leicester 
begs of him to save her son, Cecil answers her that his 
fate is with a higher power. Babington, Bishop of Wor- 
cester, glances at him cautiously in a Court sermon ; but 
when sent for by the angry Queen he denies that he 
pointed to the Earl. Save his cousin, Lady Scrope, and 
his sisters, Lady Rich and the Countess of Northumber- 
land, not one of his confederates or companions, dares to 
speak for him a word. Blount slinks with his wife to 
Drayton Bassett. Southampton goes abroad to fight 
Lord Gray, breaking his parole for the second time ; an 



15. Chamberlain to Carleton, Feb. 22, Mar. 5, 1600, S. P. 0. ; Cecil to Count- 
ess of Leicester, Mar. 21, 1600, S. P. O. ; Sydney Papers, ii. 132, 213 ; Council 
Reg., Aug. 3, 17, 1600. 



124 FRANCIS BACON. 

V. 15. offence for which the council, though loath to strike the 
amiable and misled young gentleman, strips him of his 

March, company of horse. Lee makes no sign. Danvers and 
Constable hide their heads. These Bobadils of Drogheda 
and Milford skulk about the kens of Newgate Street and 
Carter Lane ; and only a group of women, kin to the 
Queen, who gloom about the court in black, find courage 
for even tears and weeds. 

Yea ; there is one. In this dead silence of despair, 
one voice alone dares to breath the Earl's name, to 
whisper in the royal ear excuses for his fault, to plead 
with that leonine heart for the mercy which becomes 
a monarch better than his crown. 

April. 16. Any man save Francis Bacon would have left the 
Earl to his fate. The connection has been to him waste 
of character and waste of time. The hope of making 
Essex chief of the national party has come to naught 
and their intercourse has ceased. To Bacon, and to 
all his kin, the Earl has brought anxiety, grief, and 
shame. The loss of rank and power is the least part 
of his loss ; that loving and beloved brother, to whom 
the Essays are so tenderly inscribed, has now sunk 
past hope, the victim of his companion's riot and evil 
ways. Despite the warnings of the Saint of God, though 
Anthony and Essex had beth promised her to amend 
their ways, they have run from bad to worse, until one 

16. Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon, various dates, in Lambeth MSS. 649, 
650 ; Devereux, i. 406. 



INTEECEDES FOR ESSEX. 125 

is about to sink into political crime,, the other into a V. 16. 

premature grave. 

r & 1600. 

17. The prospects, the affections of Bacon and Essex June, 
now lie apart, distant as the temperate and the torrid 
zones. For two whole years they have met but once ; 
to part less near in opinions than before. All that 
Bacon foresaw from the Irish expedition has come to 
pass. The voyage has failed. More than the visible 
failure Bacon does not know ; nothing of the inter- 
views with Wright ; nothing of the understanding with 
the Jesuits ; nothing of the Pope's approval ; nothing 
of the compact with O'Neile. Cecil keeps these for- 
midable secrets close, sharing them, if with any one, 
only with his creature and dependant Coke. In other 
business of the Crown, in admiralty affairs, revenue 
affairs, in debts, in grants, and fines, above all in arbi- 
trations, Bacon is now constantly employed by the 
Crown. Instructions from the Privy Council run to 
Yelverton, Coke, Fleming, and Bacon. In cases of dis- 
pute, as in those of Blundel, of Perrim, of Trachey, he 
is often employed alone. But in taking the confes- 
sions, in confronting the spies and prisoners of the 
Irish plot, he has no share. Yet, knowing no more of 
it than all men know, why should he risk his future 
to save a man who has covered him with misfortunes, 
who has sought his advice to cast it in his teeth ? 

17. Council to Yelverton, Coke, Fleming, and Bacon, Nov. 9, 1600, S. P. 0. ; 
Council Reg., Feb. 2, 28, July 6, Sept. 29, Dec. 24, 1600. 



1600. 
June. 



126 FRANCIS BACON. 

V. 18. 18. Bacon is not the man to ask. Seeing the Earl 
crushed without being charged, supposing him free 
from crime, he carries his plea of clemency to the 
throne. Often in the Queen's closet on public duty, 
he seizes every opening for this plea. Never had such 
an offender such an advocate. Gayly, gravely, in speech, 
in song, he besets the royal ear. He kneels to her 
Majesty at Nonesuch ; he coaxes her at Twickenham 
Park. When she ferries to his lodge, he presents her 
with a sonnet on mercy ; when she calls him to the 
palace, he reads to her letters purporting to come from 
the penitent Earl. What Babington dares not hint 
from the pulpit, Bacon dares to urge in the private 
chamber. Wit, eloquence, persuasion of the rarest 
power, he lavishes on this ungrateful cause. At times 
the Queen seems shaken in her mood ; but she knows 
her kinsman better than his advocate knows him. 
Spain still threatens a descent ; and Ireland rocks with 
the tumult of civil war. Those scenes of Shakespeare's 
play disturb her dreams. This play has had a long 
and splendid run, not less from its glorious agony of 
dramatic passion than from the open countenance lent 
to it by the Earl, who, before his voyage, was a con- 
stant auditor at the Globe, and by his noble companions 
Rutland and Southampton. The great parliamentary 
scene, the deposition of Richard, not in the printed 
book, was probably not in the early play ; yet the 

18. Abstract of Evidence against Essex, July 22, 1600, S. P. 0.; Shake- 
speare's Richard II., editions of 1598 and 1608. 



1600. 

June. 



SHAKESPEAKE'S " KICHARD THE SECOND." 127 

representation of a royal murder and a successful usur- V. 18 
pation on the public stage is an event to be applied 
by the groundlings in a pernicious and disloyal sense. 
Tongues whisper to the Queen that this play is part 
of a great plot, to teach her subjects how to murder 
kings. They tell her she is Richard ; Essex, Boling- 
broke. These warnings sink into her soul. When 
Lambard, Keeper of the Records, waits upon her at 
the palace, she exclaims to him, " I am Richard, know 
you not that ? " 

19. Nor does the play by Shakespeare stand alone. 
One of the Earl's friends publishes on this story of the 
deposition of Richard a singular and mendacious tract, 
which, under ancient names and dates, gives a false and 
disloyal account of things and persons in his own age : 
the childless sovereign ; the association of defence ; the 
heavy burden of taxation ; the levy of double subsidies ; 
the prosecution of an Irish war, ending in general dis- 
content ; the outbreak of blood ; the solemn deposition 
and final murder of the prince. The book has no name 
on the title-page, — that of John Hay ward signs the ded- 
ication. Bolingbroke is made the hero of the tale ; and, 
that even the grossly stupid may not miss its meaning, 
this lump of sedition is dedicated to the Earl. In one 
place it openly affirms the existence of a title to the 
throne superior to that of the Queen ! 

19. Hay ward's First Part of the Life of Henry IV., 1599; Papers concerning 
the History of Henry IV., the Letter Apologetical written by Dr. Hay ward, 
1599, S. P. 0. 



1600. 

June. 



128 FRANCIS BACON. 

V. 20. 20. This proves too much for Elizabeth. Packing the 
scribe in jail, she sends for Bacon to draw up articles 
against him. 

Had she sent for Coke ! 

To Bacon's tenderness of human life the poor scribbler, 
Hayward, owes his subsequent length of days and author- 
ship of other books. " There is treason in it," says the 
Queen ; as indeed there is. " Treason, your Grace ? " 
replies Bacon ; " not treason, Madam, but felony, much 
felony." " Ha! "gasps her Highness, willing to hang a 
rogue for one crime as for another ; " felony, — where ? " 
" Where, Madam ? Everywhere, — the whole book is a 
theft from Cornelius Tacitus." A light of laughter breaks 
the cloud. " But," says her darkening Highness, " Hay- 
ward is a fool ; some one else has writ the book ; make 
him confess it ; put him to the rack." 

" Nay, Madam," pleads the advocate of mercy ; " rack 
not his body, — rack his style. Give him paper and pens, 
with help of books ; bid him carry on his tale. By com- 
paring the two parts, I will tell you if he be the true 
man." 

juiy. 21. Aware how strong are Bacon's views on political 
crime, some of the conspirators, conscious of their own 
guilty thoughts, dread lest in these frequent passages with 
the Queen he may be taking part against their lord. 

20. Bacon's Apologie, 36 ; Bacon's Remains, 42 ; Matters wherewith Dr. Hay- 
ward was charged, and Dr. Hay ward's Confession, 1599, S. P. O. 

21. Bacon's Apologie, 47 ; Birch, 459 ; Montagu, xii. 168. 



IMPROVEMENT IN ESSEX'S AFFAIES. 129 

Fear gives suspicion wing. Among themselves they V. 21. 
whisper that in the royal presence he has pronounced the 
offence treason. The true offence is treason ; but Bacon Jul 
has not called it such, for he has no knowledge of its 
darker facts. He therefore meets and spurns the misrep- 
resentation of his words. In a note to Lord Henry How- 
ard, one of the Roman Catholic friends of Essex, he 
writes with honest heat : " I thank God my wit serveth 
me not to deliver any opinion to the Queen which my 
stomach serveth me not to maintain ; one and the same 
conscience guiding and fortifying me. The untruth of 
this fable God and my sovereign can witness, and there I 

leave it For my Lord of Essex, I am not servile 

to him, having regard to my superior duty. I have been 
much bound unto him ; on the other side, I have spent 
more time and more thoughts about his well-doing than 
ever I did about mine own. I pray God you his friends 
amongst you be in the right." 

22. Affairs grow brighter for the Earl. Good news 
come in from Dublin and the Hague ; news that Des- 
mond has been taken, and Wexford pacified by Montjoy ; 
that Yere and Nassau have fought a battle and gained a 
victory on Nieuport sands. The Queen's heart opens. 
When the Earl now begs for freedom, she more than ever 
inclines to hear his prayer. Cecil gets alarmed ; put- 

22. Essex to Eliz., June 21, 1600, S. P. 0.; Chamberlain to Carleton, July 1, 
26, 1600, S. P. O.; Confession of D. Hayward, July 11, 1600, S. P. O.; Abstract 
of Evidence against Essex, July 22, 1600; Examination of Thomas Wright, 
July 24, 1600, S. P. O. ; Bacon's Apologie, 41, 57. 

6* I 



130 FRANCIS BACON. 

V. 22. ting Wright and Hay ward under stern examination, he 
frames from their confessions an indictment against Es- 
Jul ' sex, which, if half of it were proved, would assuredly 
send him to the block. But an advocate, stronger than 
Cecil, stands beside the Queen ; who, in season, as well 
as out of season, in the midst of a dispute on law, in 
the turn of an anecdote, in a casual laugh or sigh, 
searches and finds a way to her heart. One day she 
asks him about his brother's gout. Anthony's gout is 
sometimes better, sometimes worse. "I tell you how 
it is, Bacon," says her sagacious Majesty ; " these physi- 
cians give you the same physic to draw and to cure ; 
so they first do you good, and then do you harm." 
" Good God, Madam ! " cries Bacon, " how wisely you 
speak of physic to the body ! consider of physic to the 
mind. In the case of my Lord of Essex, your princely 
word is, that you mean to reform his mind, not to ruin 
his fortune. Have you not drawn the humor ? Is it 
not time to apply the cure ? " Another day she tells 
him the Earl has written to her most dutifully, that she 
felt moved by his protestations ; but that, when she came 
to the end, it was all to procure from her a patent of 
sweet wines ! " How your Majesty construes ! " says 
Bacon ; " as if duty and desire could not stand together ! 
Iron clings to the loadstone from its nature. A vine 
creeps to the pole that it may twine." " Speak to your 
business," says the Queen ; speak for yourself : for the 
Earl not a word." 

Yet drop by drop the daily oil softens her heart. At 



ESSEX SET AT LARGE. 



131 



length the Earl is set at large ; though as one to whom V. 22. 
much has been pardoned; one who shall never again 
command armies, or even approach the Court. Eliza- Jul ' 
beth will see her kinsman's face no more. Shall he go 
back to the Irish camp ? " When I send Essex back 
into Ireland," says the Queen, "I will marry you, — 
you, Mr. Bacon. Claim it of me." 



132 FRANCIS BACON. 



1600 
Oct. 



CHAPTER VI 



THE STREET FIGHT 



VI. 1. 1. When free to plot, Essex, in the secrecy of his 
own house, and in open breach of loyalty and honor, 
renews the intrigue with Rome. Blount returns from 
Drayton Basset to crowd Barns Elms and Essex House, 
the Earl's head-quarters in and near London, with the 
most desperate of his Papist gangs. Mad at their loss 
of time, they propose to do without an army what they 
failed to do with one. Enough, they say, to raise a 
troop, to kill Raleigh and Nottingham, to seize the 
Queen by force, and summon a Parliament of their 
own. Essex shall be swept to the throne by a street 
fight and an act of assassination. Yet, if they still 
pretend to believe him more popular than Elizabeth, 
they dare not trust his chances and their own safety to 
an English crowd. Seeking to gain strength elsewhere, 
they open a deceptive intercourse with James, incite 
O'Neile to resist by promises of speedy help, raise a 
band of their sturdy partisans in Wales. One Eng- 
lishman holding office, Sheriff Smith, of London, prob- 

1. Nottingham to Montjoy, Goodman, ii. 14; Jardine's Criminal Trials, i. 
342 ; Chamberlain to Carleton, Oct. 10, 1600, S. P. O. 



PARTISANS OF ESSEX. 133 

ably a Roman Catholic, alone listens to their schemes. VI. 1. 

The Earls 'of Rutland and Southampton sit at the 

. 1600. 
board ; Rutland bound, like Southampton, by a pair 0ct> 

of bright eyes to follow the Earl's fortunes, being 
deeply in love with Elizabeth Sydney, daughter of Lady 
Essex by her first husband Sir Philip ; neither of them 
sharing his insane ambition or suspecting his murder- 
ous thoughts. The partners of his secret soul are those 
Papists, old and new, who have been and will be the 
terror and shame of England for twenty years. Blount 
and Danvers, Davis, Percy, and Monteagle are not the 
worst. From kens like the Hart's Horn and the Ship- 
wreck Tavern, haunts of the vilest refuse of a great 
city, the spawn of hells and stews, the vomit of Italian 
cloisters and Belgian camps, Blount, long familiar with 
the agents of disorder, unkennels, in the Earl's name, 
a pack of needy ruffians eager for any service which 
seems to promise pay to their greed or license to their 
lust. 

2. These miscreants are wholly Papists. Four of the 
five monsters who, some years later, dig the mine in 
Vineyard House, Robert Catesby, John Wright, Chris- 
topher Wright, and Thomas Winter, answer to this 
call of Blount ; while the fifth, Thomas Percy, is with 
them in the persons of his more reputable kinsmen Jo- 
celyn and Charles. Nearly all their most guilty associ- 

2. List of Prisoners in the Compter and the Poultry, Feb. 8, 1601, S. P. 0. ; 
Lodge, ii. 545. 



1600. 
Oct. 



134 FRANCIS BACON. 

VI. 2. ates of the Powder Plot, Throckmorton, Lyttleton, and 
Grant, join with them ; as also Ogle, Baynham, White- 
locke, and Downhall, the dregs and waste of a dozen 
Roman Catholic Plots. 

3. They mean to kill the Queen, — a palace murder 
if she resist them, a Pomfret murder if she yield. Ra- 
leigh and Cecil are to share the fate of Bushy and 
Green. Is Essex more squeamish than Bolingbroke? 
Is Blount less bold than Piers of Exton ? Though 
they advance towards their goal under cover of a de- 
sign to free the Queen from enemies who hold her in 
thrall, the confession of Blount on the scaffold removes 
all doubt of a deliberate plan to assassinate her if she 
stand in their way. " I know and must confess," said 
the impenitent ruffian, " if we had failed in our end, 
we should even have drawn blood from herself." Nor 
is this design of dethronement and assassination a last 
resource of men at bay. The plan was formed two 
years before. It lay at the door of all Father Wright's 
suggestions, inspired the publication of Hayward's tract, 
controlled the understanding with O'Neile, gave color 
to the correspondence with King James. 

4. At the moment when this faction had been strug- 
gling to secure the Irish command, Bacon had been en- 



3. State Trials, i. 1415. 

4. Scottish Papers of Elizabeth, Ixii. 28, 46, 50, 52, 54; lxiii. 13, 15, 22, 
31, 45. 



1600. 



VALENTINE THOMAS'S CONFESSION. 135 

gaged with Coke arid others in probing a mysterious crime. VI. 4. 
A Scot of many names and characters, — Thomas Ander- 
son, Thomas Alder son, Valentine Thomas, a servant, a sol- 
dier, a gentleman, — giving no good account of his journey 
to London, had been brought into the Tower. Bread and 
water, Bacon and Coke, had brought him to his knees. 
He confessed that he had been employed by the King 
of Scots to kill the Lord Treasurer Burghley and her 
Majesty the Queen. Here is the confession, solemnly at- 
tested : — 

Collection of the Principal Points in Valentine Thomas's 
Confession concerning the Practice against Her Majes- 
ty's Person. Subscribed by himself the 20th of De- 
cember, 1598. 

Valentine Thomas, otherwise called Thomas Alderson 
or Anderson, confesseth that his access to the King of 
Scotts was principally procured by one John Stewart of 
the Buttery, who keepeth the King's door, and that he re- 
paired to the King at sundry times and in sundry places ; 
and amongst divers speeches of many things concerning 
the state of England and her Majesty's person, the King 
fell one day into some speech of the Lord Treasurer, 
whom he wished Valentine Thomas to kill, as having ever 
been his enemy about the Queen, which fact when Valen- 
tine undertook to execute, after some speeches how it 
might best be done, the King farther replied, "Nay, I 
must have you do another thing for me, and all is one ; 
for it is all but blood. You shall take an occasion to 



136 FRANCIS BACON. 

VI. 4. deliver a petition to the Queen in manner as you shall 
think good, and so may you come near to stab her." And 
Valentine told the King that it was a dangerous piece of 
work, but he would do it, so the King would reward him 
thereafter, and the King said, " You shall have enough." 
And after this, Valentine took his leave of the King, and 
said he was to go to Glasgow for a time to his kinsman's 
wedding ; and the King said, " Go, as you say, to Glasgow, 
and then come again, when you hear that Sorleboy is 
come." And so he left the King, and the Laird Arkin- 
glasse came to the King. 

[Signed] Valentyne Thomas. 
[Attested by] John Peyton. 

Edw. Coke. 

Tho. Flemyng. 

Fr. Bacon. 

Wm. Ward. 

The Government has kept this story secret. The Queen, 
indeed, professes to believe it false, and she is wise to do 
so. James stands beyond her reach ; her courts cannot 
punish him ; after her death he must be King. To prove 
him an assassin is to make of him, and of all who sup- 
port his claims, the most ruthless of her foes. James, 
knowing of Thomas's arrest, is anxious to be spared the 
disgrace of a public trial ; yet the knowledge that such a 
crime has been contemplated helps to nerve the hand of 
every one who loves his Queen, — the visible embodiment 
of English virtue and English strength. 



ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE EALEIGH. 137 

5. If only the Papists share the heart of Blount, still, VI. 5. 
where he fancies that either private love or lust of spoil 

will tempt a man to arm, he throws his line. From Jan 
Lancashire, from Norfolk, and from Devon, friends of the 
conspirators prick to town. Among them comes Sir 
Ferdinando Gorges, governor of Plymouth, a brave and 
loyal gentleman, akin to Sir Walter Raleigh, who, seeing 
him drawn into a dangerous plot, sends to warn him. 
Blount, now ready for the blow that is to make him 
father-in-law to a king, persuades Gorges to invite the 
Captain of the Queen's Guard to come and speak with 
him at Essex House. Raleigh jumps into his barge. 
At Essex-stairs the plotters beg him to land ; but find- 
ing the fox too wise to trust his life in such hands, 
Blount, throwing off the mask, sends an armed boat in 
chase of him, which failing to catch its prey, fires four 
pieces into his barge. 

6. The blood of the conspirators mounts with this Feb. 6. 
attempt at assassination. On Sunday they will rise ; 

the pretext to be spread through the streets and lanes 
being that Raleigh has formed a plot to murder the 
Earl. The parts in the play are all given out. While 
Smith secures the city in their rear, a force will march 
from Essex House and seize the avenues of Whitehall. 
Blount is to keep the palace-gates, Davis the hall, Dan- 



5. Declaration of the Practice of the Earl of Essex, 1601 ; Gorges's Answer to 
certain Imputations, quoted in Cayley, i. 387 ; State Trials, i. 1424. 

6. Jardine's Criminal Trials, i. 320. 



138 FRANCIS BACON. 

VI. 6. vers the entrance of the presence-chamber, while Essex 
himself, pushing into the royal closet, is to force the 
aged Queen, sword in hand, to yield. 



1601 

Feb. 



7. To fan the courage of their crew, and prepare the 
citizens for news of a royal deposition, the chiefs of 
the insurrection think good to revive for a night their 
favorite play. They send for Augustine Phillips, mana- 
ger of the Blackfriars theatre, to Essex House. Mont- 
eagle, Percy, and two or three more, — among them 
Cufife and Meyrick, gentlemen whose names and faces 
he does not recognize, — receive him ; and Lord Mont- 
eagle, speaking for the rest, tells him they want to have 
played the next day Shakespeare's deposition of Richard 
the Second. Phillips objects that the play is stale, that 
a new one is running, and that the company will lose 
money by a change. Monteagle meets his objections. 
The theatre shall not lose ; a host of gentlemen from 
Essex House will fill the galleries ; if there is fear of 
loss, here are forty shillings to make it up. 
Feb. 7. Phillips takes the money ; and King Richard is duly 
deposed for them and put to death. 

Feb. 8. 8. Next morning, after the play, when the conspira- 
tors are about to rise, Egerton, Popham, and Knollys 
knock at the gates of Essex House. This visit of the 



7. Examination of Augustine Phillips, Feb. 18, 1601, S. P. 0. This exami- 
nation has been printed by Mr. Collier, but with an error in the names. 

8. Council Reg., Feb. 14, 1601; State Trials, i. 1333-1409. 



ENDEAVORS TO RAISE THE CITY. 139 

Lord Keeper, the Lord Chief Justice, and the Queen's VI- 8. 

Chamberlain, disconcerts their plains. They meant to 

. 1601. 

begin by a street tumult and a march on Whitehall, Peb-8 

under cover of a design to punish Raleigh and restore 
the Queen to her freedom of choice. The arrival of 
these great officers of State compels them either to lay 
down their arms and submit to the law, or to rush into 
the city, raising the cry of war against the Queen. Mad 
as the action seems, they choose to strike. Putting the 
Ministers under guard, the Papist rabble, Blount, Catesby, 
Tresham, Danvers, Davis, Wright, Grant, Lyttleton, 
Baynham, and their fellows, tear past Temple-bar, yell- 
ing to the astonished citizens to arm and follow the 
young Earl. 

9. The Queen sits in her palace superbly calm. Raleigh 
himself has scarcely her nerve of steel. Told at dinner 
that her faithless kinsman is in arms against her, she eats 
her meal, no more disturbed than by a tumult on the 
stage. When, some minutes later, comes in news that 
London has risen for the Earl, she proudly puts aside the 
lie : " He who placed me in this seat will preserve me 
in it." 

10. Essex is no more Bolingbroke than Elizabeth 
Richard. It is Sunday morning, and the people crowd 

9. Birch, ii. 468 ; Jardine's Criminal Trials, i. 309. 

10. Lodge's Illustrations, ii. 545; List of Prisoners in the Poultry and the 
Compter, Feb. 8, 1601, S. P. O. ; Council Reg., Feb. 14, 1601. 



140 FRANCIS BACON. 

VI. 10. the streets ; some making holiday, more on their way to 
church. Yet, though the Earl rides past them, not a 

Feb 8 ' man from Temple Bar to Cheap arms to follow this de- 
scendant of John of Gaunt. As the Papists wheel into 
the city, the inhabitants shut their gates. Halberds and 
lances soon gleam out from city doors ; not to guard the 
Earl, but to defend religion and the Queen ; so that, 
when the baffled insurgents, pressed from the upper lanes 
about Guildhall, beat a retreat towards St. Paul's, they 
find the gorge of Ludgate and the long line of approaches 
to Essex House blocked up with pikes. Deceived in the 
promises of Smith, the despairing band fall back on Lud- 
gate Hill, where Levison, with a party of soldiers, guards 
the pass. Blount sounds a charge. Some fall, some 
turn, some cut their way through. Seeing his old adver- 
sary, Waite, in the ranks before him, Blount rushes upon 
him, and, though faint with wounds, chops the assassin 
down. It is the last pang of joy before he yields. 

The game is now up. All London is against them in 
an hour, as England will be in a week. The gangs dis- 
perse. Some crawl into alehouse-vaults ; some leap into 
boats and drop with the tide ; but every honest man's 
hand is against them, and at sundown most of the lead- 
ers are safe in jail. In less than forty-ei^ht hours from 
the first rebellious shout near Temple-bar, Ogle and 
Throckmorton are in the Gatehouse ; Baynham, Lyt- 
tleton, and Percy in the Fleet ; Smith and Constable 
in the Poultry ; Blount in Mr. Newsom's house in Paul's 
Churchyard, when his wounds allow, to be carried to 






TRIAL OF ESSEX. 141 

the Tower ; Whitelocke in the Marshalsea ; Catesby in VI 10. 
the house of Sheriff Gamble ; Grant and the two Wrights 
in the White Lion; Danvers, Essex, Lee, Southampton, Feb 8 
and Monteagle in the Tower. 

11. Swift justice is the only mercy they can now hope Feb. 19. 
from man. 

Never has criminal fairer trial, less partial judges, than 
the Earl. His peers, the companions of his youth, the 
connections of his blood, are summoned by a special 
message from the Crown. The most odious facts against 
him are withheld ; the Government wishing to spare his 
memory, though they cannot in honor, and dare not in 
policy spare his life. They shrink from proclaiming to 
the world that a kinsman of the Queen has been in 
treacherous intercourse with Jesuits and the Pope. Not 
a word is said on the trial about his midnight interviews 
with Father Wright ; not a word about his complicity in 
the publication of Hayward's tract. Only the obvious 
facts are proved, but these suffice. From the hour of his 
rising his fate has been sealed. That girlish romance of 
the ring, that still more girlish tale of Elizabeth's weak- 
ness and change of mind, are idle mirage of the brain. 
Camden, indeed, speaks of her hesitancy ; but Camden 
wrote after the Queen's death, when it had become fash- 
ionable at court to speak well of the Earl. Jardine was 
the first to remark that this rumor of her changes and 
hesitations is unsupported by any one passage in the 

11. Council Keg., Feb. 13, 1601; Jardine, i. 376. 



1601. 
Feb. 19 



142 FRANCIS BACON. 

VI. 11. State Papers. In fact, Elizabeth never in her life 
showed less weakness than in the case of her rebellions 
kinsman. For a crime like his there was no mercy but 
the grave. 

12. Called by the Privy Council to bear his part in 
this great drama, Bacon no more shirks his duty at 
the bar than Levison shirked his duty at Ludgate Hill, 
or Raleigh his duty at Charing Cross. As her Council 
Learned in the Law, he has no more choice or hesita- 
tion about his duty of defence than her Captain of the 
Guard. Raleigh and Bacon have each tried to save 
the Earl as long as he remained an honest man ; but 
England is their first love, and by her faith, her free- 
dom, and her Queen, they must stand or fall. 

Never is stern and holy duty done more gently on 
a criminal than by Bacon on this trial. He aggravates 
nothing. If he condemns the action, he refrains from 
needless condemnation of the man. Here is his speech, 
(set down, though it has already appeared in print, 
that the reader may have the whole case before his 
eyes without trouble of turning to another book) : — 

" My Lord, I expected not that the matter of defence 
would have been excused this day; to defend is law- 
ful, but to rebel in defence is not lawful ; therefore 
what my Lord of Essex hath here delivered, in my 

12. Council to Bacon, Feb. 18, 1601, S. P. 0.; Abstract of Evidence against 
Essex, July 22, 1600, S. P. O.; Jardine i. 316-321, 351, 360. 



SPEECHES ON ESSEX'S TRIAL. 143 

conceit seemeth to be simile prodigio. I speak not to VI. 12. 
simple men, but to prudent, grave, and wise peers, who 
can draw up out of the circumstances the things them- Feb 19 
selves. And this I must needs say, it is evident that 
my Lord of Essex had planted a pretence in his heart 
against the Government, and now, under color of ex- 
cuse, he layeth the cause upon his particular enemies. 
My Lord of Essex, I cannot resemble your proceedings 
more rightly than to one Pisistratus, in Athens, who, 
coming into the city with the purpose to procure the 
subversion of the kingdom and wanting aid for the 
accomplishing his aspiring desires, and as the surest 
means to win the hearts of the citizens unto him, he 
entered the city, having cut his body with a knife, to 
the end they might conjecture he had been in danger 
of his life. Even so your Lordship gave out in the 
streets that your life was sought by the Lord Cobham 
and Sir Walter Raleigh, by this means persuading your- 
selves, if the city had undertaken your cause, all would 
have gone well on your side. But the imprisoning the 
Queen's councillors, what reference had that fact to my 
Lord Cobham, Sir Walter Raleigh, or the rest ? You 
allege the matter to have been resolved on a sudden. 
No, you were three months in the deliberation thereof. 
0, my Lord, strive with yourself and strip off all ex- 
cuses ; the persons whom you aimed at, if you rightly 
understand it, are your best friends. All that you have 
said, or can say, in answer to these matters, are but 
shadows. It were your best course to confess and not 
to justify." 



1601. 

Feb. 19 



144 FRANCIS BACON. 

VI. 12. What a contrast to the style of Coke ! Later in the 
day, after hours of prevarication on the part of Essex, 
Bacon speaks again, in a warmer tone, but without a 
particle of rancor in his words : — 

" My Lord, I have never yet seen, in any case, such 
favor shown to any prisoner ; so many digressions, such 
delivering of evidence by fractions, and so silly a defence 
of such great and notorious treasons. Your Lordship 
may see how weakly my Lord of Essex hath shadowed 
his purpose, and how slenderly he hath answered the 
objections against him. But admit the case that the 
Earl's intent were, as he would have it, to go as a sup- 
pliant to her Majesty, shall petitioners be armed and 
guarded ? Neither is it a mere point of law, as my 
Lord of Southampton would have it believed, that con- 
demns them of treason, but it is apparent in common 
sense ; to consult, to execute, to run together in num- 
bers, in doublets and hose, armed with weapons, what 
color of excuse can be alleged for this ? And all this 
persisted in after being warned by messengers sent from 
her Majesty's own person. Will any man be so simple 
as to take this to be less than treason ? But, my Lord, 
doubting that too much variety of matter may occasion 
forgetfulness, I will only trouble your Lordship's remem- 
brance with this point, rightly comparing this rebellion 
of my Lord of Essex to the Duke of Guise's, that came 
upon the barricadoes at Paris in his doublet and hose, 
attended upon but with eight gentlemen ; but his con- 






1601. 

Feb. 19 



ESSEX CONDEMNED TO DEATH. 145 

fidence in the city was even suck as my Lord's was ; VI. 12 
and when he had delivered himself so far into the shal- 
low of his own conceit, and could not accomplish what 
he expected, the King taking arms against him, he was 
glad to yield himself, thinking to color his pretexts and 
his practices by alleging the occasion thereof to be a 
private quarrel." 

Defence tliere is none : the peers condemn him to 
death. 

13. After trial and condemnation, when the Garter is March, 
plucked from his knee and the George from his breast, 
the Earl's pride and courage give way. He closes a 
turbulent and licentious life by confessing against his 
companions, still untried, more than the law-officers of 
the Crown could have proved against them ; and, despi- 
cable to relate, most of all against the two men who have 
been his closest associates, — Blount and Cuffe. His 
confessions in the face of death deprive these prisoners 
of the last faint hope of grace. They go, with Meyrick 
and Danvers, to the gallows or to the block. But the 
anger of the Queen being stayed, the rest of the gang 
— Catesby, Tresham, Grant, Winter, Baynham, and 
their tribe — escape, some with imprisonment, some 
with mulct, for future villanies. At the end of twelve 
or fifteen weeks the last of the conspirators leaves the 
Tower. 

13. Council Keg., Feb. 24, 1602; Jardine's "Criminal Trials," i. 366-372; 
State Trials, i. 1412, 1414. 

7 j 



1601. 
Aug. 6. 



146 FRANCIS BACON. 

VI. 14. 14. Their fines reward service for which no other sal- 
aries are paid. The Queen, who in the fictions of biog- 
raphers and historians is forever starving Bacon for the 
good of his soul, now makes over to him, in actual fact, 
a considerable share of Catesby's fine. The manner of 
this grant of twelve hundred pounds is not less gracious 
than the gift itself. It is not made in the usual way, 
from the Lord Treasurer's office, but as a public act of 
the Privy Council and the Queen. 

A council meets at Greenwich Palace, Egerton in the 
chair. Around him sit Lord Buckhurst, the delightful 
poet ; Nottingham, the great commander ; the Earls of 
Shrewsbury and Worcester ; Knollys, Fortescue, and 
Cecil. These councillors draft a letter to Coke, which 
stands among the many interesting letters in the Privy 
Council register : — 



A Letter to Edward Coke, Esq., Her Majesty's 
Attorney- General. 

Aug. 6, 1601. 

Forasmuch as her Majesty is pleased to bestow particu- 
lar reward upon divers of her servants, to be taken out 
of such fines as have grown unto her by the offences of 
several persons, we have thought good to let you know 
particularly who they be that are at this time to receive 
several portions in that kind, to the intent that you may 
cause some such assurances to be passed over, as the 

14. Council Reg., Aug. 6, 1601. 



AWARDS FROM REBELS' FORFEITS. 147 

person may be assured to receive those portions as are VI. 14. 
allotted to them according to her Majesty's gracious pleas- 
lire, in this sort following. When there is an assurance Au ' 
passed to her Majesty's use of certain lands, for the pay- 
ment of two thousand at several days by Francis Tresham, 
her Majesty is pleased that Mr. Lieutenant of the Tower 
shall receive the sum of a thousand five hundred pounds, 
assigned him out of that ; the other five hundred remain- 
ing to be disposed at her Majesty's pleasure. Next, you 
shall understand that she is likewise pleased to divide 
the fine of Mr. Catesby between Mr. Francis Bacon, Sir 
Arthur Gorges, and Captain Carpenter, at Ostend, in this 
sort following, for which you are likewise to prepare some 
such assurance to be passed from the Queen as the person 
may receive those sums, every one pro rata, out of every 
portion as it is assigned to be paid at several times, 
namely, to Mr. Bacon the sum of a thousand two hun- 
dred pounds ; to Sir Arthur Gorges a thousand two 
hundred pounds ; and to Captain Carpenter the rest ; 
for doing whereof these presents shall be your war- 
rant. 

Thomas Egerton. 

Buckhurst. 

Nottingham. 

Shrewsbury. 

Worcester. 

Knoll ys. 

Robert Cecil. 

John Fortescue. 



148 FRANCIS BACON. 

VI. 14. Fancy Coke's delight in passing an assurance for twelve 

hundred pounds to Francis Bacon ! 
1601. 

Aug. 

15. One actor in the drama which has shaken London 
slips mysteriously from public view. Flung into the 
Tower with Essex and Danvers, as of equal guilt, Lord 
Monteagle is neither put with them on trial for his life, 
nor, in the various public investigations, are the damning 
facts of his having sent for Augustine Phillips and of 
having paid the Globe comedians to play the deposition 
of Richard II. on the very eve of the rising, allowed to 
escape Coke's lips in a public court. That Phillips was 
sent for to Essex House, and was there paid money to 
change the play at the Blackfriars theatre, are facts too 
grave for the prosecution to conceal ; but when Coke rose, 
with the comedian's evidence in his hand, he dropped the 
name of Lord Monteagle from the sworn depositions, in- 

oct 24. serting that of Meyrick in its place ! Meyrick is hanged, 
Monteagle only fined. 

Cecil must have his reasons for this strange suppres- 
sion, this cruel substitution : reasons which become 
clear from Monteagle's share in the more terrible drama 
of the Powder Plot. 

16. Lord Campbell writes, and many others have 
written, as though it would have been right for Bacon 
to have shirked his part in this great act of justice. 

15. Phillips's Examination, Feb. 18, 1601, S. P. 0.; State Trials, i. 1445. 
1G. Campbell's "Lives of the Chancellors," iii. 37, 89. 



HIS PART AGAINST ESSEX. 149 

Yet this can hardly be his serious meaning. To put VI. 16. 

Bacon in the wrong, the objector must prove Essex 

to have been acting in his right. This, it may be safely Aug# 

asserted, they can never do. If all writers must agree 

■ 
that England was justified in crushing with swift, stern 

hand this peculiarly hideous and unnatural plot, by 
what path of reasoning can we come to a conclusion 
that one of the Queen's Counsellors, called to his duty 
by the Crown was not right ? 

In Bacon's place, we must assume that Lord Camp- 
bell would have done his duty as Bacon did. There 
is no second course for honest men. Bring the case 
down. Lord Campbell has had many clients : men who 
have paid him fees far larger than the patch of meadow 
tossed to Bacon by the Earl. Imagine events arming 
the papal powers once more against England ; hostile 
fleets off the coast ; O'Donnel or M'Mahon at the head 
of a successful host in Connaught ; Zouaves swarming 
in Cork ; our colonies menaced with fire and sword ; 
a gang of ruffians, spawn of the stews and prisons, 
abroad in London ; the Queen's cousin of Hanover plot- 
ting with all those rebels and fanatics against her crown 
and life ; a foreign league resolving to put down our 
free constitution and our Protestant faith, — imagine, un- 
der all these circumstances of alarm, one of Lord Camp- 
bell's former clients, a man for whose personal character 
he felt no respect and whose political conduct he held 
in abhorrence, joining with John Mitchell, Dr. Cullen, 
and the disbanded remnants of the Pope's brigade, in 



150 FRANCIS BACON. 

VI. 16. open rebellion against the law, in rousing the dregs of 
the city, in shedding innocent blood at Charing Cross ; 
Aug. would not Lord Campbell, under such provocations, do 
his duty as a lawyer and as a man ? 

This was Bacon's case. He owed nothing to Essex 
that could have tempted even a weak man to take the 
wrong side instead of the right side. He owed alle- 
giance to his country and to truth. He was as much 
the Queen's officer, armed with her commission, bound 
to obey her commands, as her Captain of the Guard. 
He had no part in the Earl's crime, and utterly ab- 
horred his means, his associates, and his ends. To have 
done more than he did in the conduct of this bad dra- 
ma might have heen noble and patriotic ; to have done 
less would have been to act like a weak girl, not like 
a great man. 

<> ct - 17. That the bearing of Francis Bacon throughout 

these mournful events is just and noble is the public 
verdict of his time. Lord Campbell talks of his fall in 
popularity. " For some time after Essex's execution 
Bacon was looked upon with great aversion." But, in 
truth, he never loses for a day the hearts of his coun- 
trymen. Of this the proofs are incontestable. While 
the spirits of men are yet warm with remembrance of 
the scenes at Tyburn and on Tower Hill, writs travel 
down into the shires for a new Parliament. Now, there- 
fore, comes the proof how far he has fallen. If he be 

17. Campbell's "Bacon," iii. 43; Willis, "Not. Pari.," 149. 



RETURNED FOR IPSWICH AND ST. ALBANS. 151 

thought of with aversion, as Lord Campbell says, here VI. 17. 
are the means, the opportunities, and the scenery for a 
condign revenge. The scot and lot men of Elizabeth ' 

are not nice. A candidate cross to the moods of squire 
and freeman often finds himself burned in straw, pelted 
with foul eggs, or drummed by humorous rogues from 
the county town. Do the friends of Lord Essex rise on 
his adversaries ? Is the drum beaten against Raleigh, 
or the stone flung at Bacon? Just the reverse. The 
world has not been with the rebellious Earl ; and those 
who have struck down the papist plot are foremost in 
the ranks of the new Parliament. Four years ago Ba- 
con had been chosen to represent Ipswich, and the chief 
town of Suffolk again ratifies its choice. But his public 
acts have won for him a second constituency in St. Al- 
bans. Such a double return — always rare in the House 
of Commons — is the highest compliment that could 
have been paid to the purity and popularity of his polit- 
ical life. 



152 FRANCIS BACON. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE NEW REIGN. 



1603. 
April. 



VII. l. Nor is Bacon's popularity a tide at the ebb. The 
Queen dies. A King comes in who knows not Joseph, 
nor the principles of Joseph. James has secretly prom- 
ised 'peace to Spain. A man of weak nerve and small, 
quick brain, fond of his ease, a friend of dogmatic con- 
troversies, and a stranger to religion, he can neither 
tolerate nor understand the passionate fervor of the 
realm for this foreign war. By war he sees that he 
may offend the Jesuits and the Pope, men who can 
put poison into his wine or sharpen against him an 
assassin's knife. What are the Dutch to him, that he 
should offend for them the masters of a hundred legions 
and twenty secret fraternities ? Why, these Dutch are 
in arms against lawful kings ! England, it is true, has 
undertaken their defence, and, in league with Henri 
Quatre, she has for many years past commanded in 
their towns and camps. But the treaties of Elizabeth, 
he says, are not his treaties, nor can he hold himself 
bound by the acts of a woman and a fool. 

But the desertion of a cause which every man between 

1. King's MSS. 123; Harl. MSS. 532. 



UNDER A CLOUD AT COURT. 153 

the four seas possessing high spirit and sound faith feels VII. 1. 

to be his own, is not the act of a day. A path must 

. 1603. 

be prepared. The eager spirits must be dispersed or NoT# 

stunned, the great fighting men must be crushed or 

bribed. Cecil adopts this policy of peace, which suits 

his genius and secures to himself the foremost place. 

Nottingham is won by a youthful bride, and Vere is 

recalled from the Flemish camp. A master-work of 

political art sends Gray and Raleigh to the Tower. At 

the same time Bacon is thrust aside, discredited to the 

new sovereign, his usual access to the throne refused, 

and his proffered services of tongue and pen disdained. 

2. At court he is under a cloud. The patron of Es- 1604. 
sex, the employer of Valentine Thomas, takes into his 
grace all those who shared in the Earl's affections and 
in his crime. Southampton is restored in blood. Lady 
Rich and the Countess of Northumberland appear at 
court. Lady Rich's lover, Montjoy, becomes an earl. 
Rutland gets the reversion of a royal park, Monteagle 
a grant of land. Among those old partisans of Essex, 
who now keep the gates of Whitehall and dispose of 
offices and grants, Bacon is undoubtedly unpopular, — 
less, however, for his past speech against the Earl than 
for his present defence of the dead Queen. In James's 
ear the name of Elizabeth is rank ; on Bacon's tongue 

2. Grant Book of James the First, 2, 3, S. P. 0.; Doquets of James the First, 
Nov. 13, 1604, S. P. 0.; Warrant Book of James the First, 4, S. P. 0.; In feli- 
cem memoriam Elizabethan, Bacon's Works, vi. 283 ; Willis, Not. Pari., 160. 

7* 



Jan. 



1604. 



154 FRANCIS BACON. 

VII. 2. and pen her virtues live and her glories speak. When 
no man but himself dares breath her name in the court 
of her successor, he composes that magnificent prose 
elegy, In felicem Memoriam Elizabeths, which he him- 
self esteems the most precious of all his works. The 
cloud is at Whitehall or at Hampton Court, not at 
Ipswich or St. Albans. To the country his name is 
dear as ever. When writs go out for the first Parlia- 
ment of the new reign (one purpose of which is to 
restore the friends of Devereux in estate and blood), 
though the King and court bear hard against him, Ips- 
wich and St. Albans send him to London once again 
by a double return. Nor is this all. So soon as the 
burgesses meet in Westminster, he becomes again, what 
he has been before in every session for twenty years, 
their chief. Some go so far as to use his name for 
Speaker of the House ; a fact unknown to Lord Camp- 
bell ; yet worth a word in reference to the report of 
his lying at that very moment under public ban. 






Mar. 27. 3. By ancient usage the Crown appointed the Speaker 
to be chosen by the House. A leave to elect came down, 
weighted with a particular recommendation ; and, like 
a dean and chapter in the election of a bishop, the 
squires and burgesses were expected to adopt the royal 
choice. A time has now come for trying what force 
remains in these feudal forms. Some members think 

3. Com. Jour., i. 141; Bacon's Essays, No. 3; Bacon's Speech on the Natural- 
ization of the Scots, State Trials, ii. 675. 



SERVICE ON COMMITTEES. 155 

this leave to elect a Speaker should be taken in its open VII. 3. 
sense : that the House should choose it officers, causing 

1604 

these old pretensions of the Crown to cease. When, there- Mar 27 
fore, the court proposes Sir Edward Phellippes, a buzz 
and hum of opposition rises. Why not have a Speaker 
of their own ? Hastings, Neville, Bacon, each is named. 
Hastings is a Puritan, Neville an opponent of the court. 
That each of these men should be deemed fit instruments 
of opposition to the Crown is susceptible of easy ex- 
planation. But Bacon is neither a Puritan nor an ene- 
my of the court. He differs from the Puritans on some 
of their principles, particularly on their intolerance for 
errors of faith ; and he supports the King against many 
of their most' obstinate prejudices, particularly their 
repugnance to a union with the Scots. Yet the gen- 
tlemen who live with him and serve with him, who 
dine at the same tables, laugh over the same jests, and 
sometimes, it is likely, suffer from his wit, believe he 
may be played, in a good cause, even against the King. 
These gentlemen have not discovered that Bacon is a 
corrupt and obsequious rogue. 

4. If the House of Commons, not yet strong enough April. 
to give battle to the Crown on such a field as the choice 
of Speaker, accepts the nomination of Phellippes, it puts 
Bacon forward as its man of confidence, electing him on 
the Standing Committee of Privileges, on the Committee 
of Grievances, of which he is named reporter, on the 

4. Com. Jour., i. 142-253; Lords' Jour., ii. 206, 309. 



156 FRANCIS BACON. 

VII. 4. Committee for Conference on the Restraint of Speech, 
on the Committee for Union with Scotland ; in all, on 
' twenty-nine committees. All through the session he 
speaks with a boldness, an ability, a frequency unri- 
valled in the House of Commons before his day or since. 
The topics are great and various : abuses in the taverns, 
the laws against witchcraft, the license of purveyors, the 
election of members, the sin of adultery, the increase of 
drunkenness, the sale of Crown offices and lands. Two 
topics stand out from the rest with almost solid bright- 
ness of historical outline. These are the Grievances 
and the Union. 

On the first he has the disadvantage of differing from 
the Crown ; on the second from a majority of those 
country gentlemen with whom he usually speaks and 
votes. James will not hear of the List of Grievances, 
nor will the burgesses vote his Bill of Union with the 
Scots. Each side has its personal feeling and its nar- 
row view. With a deeper wisdom and a larger patriot- 
ism, Bacon, while he sees with the King that these claims 
to suspend the penal laws, to grant private monopolies, 
to command personal service, to sign away heiresses in 
marriage, to supply his kitchen from the poulterer's bas- 
ket and his cellars from the vintner's store at his own 
price, are each and all incontestably historical, founded 
in custom older in date than the oldest statute in the 
book, sees also, with the complaining citizen or squire, 
that time, by its slow but devouring sap, has hollowed 
the ground on which these regal privileges stand, so that 



1604. 
April 



INTKODUCES THE BILL OF UNION. 157 

they have no longer a safe foundation on which to rest, VII. 4 
and seeks to improve the old ways before improvement 
is too late. But James is deaf. To take from him the 
right to reward a barber with a wine patent, to compel 
the young noble to hold his reins or feed his dogs, to 
match his favorites of the bedchamber with the daugh- 
ters of English earls, to fetch in ale from Blackfriars 
and fish from Billingsgate wharf, to grant leave to his 
groom, or the darling of his groom, to vend pardons 
for rape and arson, burglary and murder, would, in his 
opinion, be to rob him of the most princely attributes of 
his high rank. 

5. Some among the Commons are not less weak than 
James. When they see him break his word, turn his 
back on the List of Grievances, nip in the flower their 
hopes of a Church reform, begin a secret correspond- 
ence with the Cardinal Archduke and with the Pope, 
they set themselves to oppose his policy even in the 
few particulars on which his policy is just and sound. 
In a union with the Scots Bacon finds a measure of 
defence against Spain. A dull squire sees in it only an 
opening for the rush into London of savages with red 
beards, bare legs, and scurvy tongues. 

Waiving his own wrongs for the public good, Bacon 
draws for the King the draft of a Bill of Union, which he 
introduces into the House of Commons in a splendid 

5. Abstract by Bacon of Objections^ the House of Commons, April 25, 1604, 
S. P. 0. ; Speech on the Union, Aprif 25, 1604, S. P. 0. 



1604. 

April 



158 FRANCIS BACON. 

VII. 5. speech, opening to the view of knight and squire a politi- 
cal scene, in which he pictures to their minds the con- 
tending nationalities and hostile creeds of Europe ; striv- 
ing, by his bold, persuasive eloquence, to lure them into 
pondering less on the ancient feud of Saxon and Scot, 
more on the permanent safety of the English faith and 
power. With all the lights of fancy, all the subtleties of 
logic, he meets on one side the obstinacy of his col- 
leagues, on the other side the perverseness of his 'prince. 
Each, however, holds to his own. The Grievances are 
not heard, the Bill of Union does not pass. 

July. 6. While Bacon is making these splendid displays of 
political wisdom and personal independence in the House 
of Commons, Lord Campbell fancies him slinking and 
skulking under public odium ! 

Lord Campbell takes everything on trust. When 
Bacon got his knighthood, Lord Campbell says he was 
" infinitely gratified by being permitted to kneel down 
with three hundred others." Now, Bacon's letters to 
Cecil on the knighthood are not only in print, but are 
known to every one who reads. In place of being in- 
finitely gratified, Bacon protests against the shame of 
being compelled to kneel down with Peter and John. So 
again with his marriage to Alice Barnham. Lord Camp- 
bell makes merry over his mercenary love and his match 
of convenience. Yet from his own text, and from the 
pages of Montagu, it is certain that he knows nothing 

6. Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, Hi. 49. 






COURTS ALICE BAENHAM. 159 



whatever of this love or of this match ; neither who Alice VH 6. 
Barnham was, nor the circumstances of her parents ; 

July. 



1604 

neither when she became Bacon's wife, nor the amount 



of jointure which she brought home to her lord. He 
imagines that Alice became Lady Bacon in 1603, shortly 
after July 3d. He says she was rich. 

In all that relates to Alice Barnham the writers of 
Bacon's life have been as much at fault as though she 
had been first the love and then the wife of Ward the 
Bover or Steer the Leveller, in place of being, as she was, 
lady to a man who framed the New Philosophy and held 
the Great Seal. Yet some of the facts about her birth, 
the associations of her early years, the members of her 
family, the circumstances of her love, courtship, marriage, 
and wedded life, may still be recovered from the manu- 
script mounds of the Bodleian, the State Paper Office, and 
the library of Westwood Park. 

7. More than a year ago, in writing to his cousin Aug. 
Cecil, Bacon mentioned his having found a handsome 
maiden to his mind. She loved him and he loved her. 
But her mother, a widow and again a wife, having made 
two good matches for herself, has set her heart on making 
great alliances for her girls. In part to please her, still 
more to glorify his bride, Bacon waits and toils that 

7. Bacon to Cecil, July 3, 1603 ; Notes on the Pakington Family in Wotton's 
Baronetage, ed. by Kimber and Johnson, i. 180. Wotton's account was derived 
from a MS. History of Sir John Pakington written by the Eev. Mr. Tomkins, a 
Prebendary of Worcester, preserved in Wotton's time at Westwood Park. The 
MS. is now lost. 



1604. 

Aug. 



160 FKANCIS BACON. 

VII. 7. he may lay at her feet a settled fortune and a more splen- 
did name. 

' The family into which — when he can steal an hour 
from the courts of law and the pursuits of science — he 
goes a-courting, and in which he is now an accepted lover, 
consists of four girls, their pretty mother, and a bold, 
handsome, heady step- father of fifty-six, — a group of 
persons notable from their private stories, and of romantic 
interest from their loves and feuds with the philosopher, 
and from the part they must have had in shaping his 
views of the felicities and infelicities of domestic life. 

8. The four young girls are the orphan daughters of 
Benedict Barnham, merchant of Cheapside and alder- 
man of his ward ; an honest fellow, who gave his wife 
a good lift in the world, and left his children to take 
their chance of rising among men, who, with all their 
sins, are never- blind to the merits of women blessed 
with youth, loveliness, and wealth. Alice is the first 
to fall in love ; but the three hoydens who now romp 
around her, and perhaps get many a hug and kiss from 
her famous lover, will soon be in their turns followed 
for their bright eyes and brighter gold. Elizabeth will 
marry Mervin Touchet, Earl of Castlehaven, that mis- 
erable wretch who, when his first young wife, the hoyden 
of to-day, is in her grave, will expiate on the block the 
foulest crime ever charged against an English peer. 

8. Wotton, i. 180-186; Nash's History of Worcestershire, i. 352; Collins's 
Peerage, art. " Audley." 






SIR JOHN PAKINGTON. 161 

The two little things now playing at Alice's knee will VII. & 
become, in due time, Lady Constable and Lady Soames. 



The mother of these girls was a daughter of Hum- 
phrey Smith, of Oheapside, silkman to the Queen. Eager, 
lovely, and aspiring, she won the alderman of her ward, 
— an admirable city match ; but she meant and means 
to rise yet higher in the world, and heaven has given 
her the strength to fight her way. Of the four hus- 
bands whom she has made, or has still to make, the 
happiest of their sex, each is to be in his turn a loftier 
one than the last. She has buried a citizen. She will, 
in turn, bury her knight. She will then marry a baron 
and, on his death, an earl. Barnham was her early 
choice. When he left her with the four girls and a 
great estate, Sir John Pakington, of Hampton Lovet, 
ancestor of that Worcestershire baronet who is said to 
have sat to Addison for the portrait of Sir Roger de 
Coverley, proffered to console her with his hearty af- 
fection and his good old name. The widow was not 
perverse. If she wept for the dear alderman of Cheap- 
side, it was in a coach emblazoned with the mullets 
and wheat-sheafs, and with a handsome and jovial knight 
at her side. 

9. Sir John has been a father to the four girls ; for 



9. Council Reg., Aug. 24, 1600, June 6, Oct. 13, 1601; Wotton, i. 180; The 
Camden Society's Miscellany, iv. 50. There is a portrait of Sir John at West- 
wood Park. My impressions of him are mainly derived from a multitude of 

K 



1604. 
Aug. 



162 FRANCIS BACON. 

VII. 9. if rough and ready, apt to quarrel, and quick to strike, 
he has a gentle and manly heart. A gentleman with due 
Aug * pride in his long line and his broad lands, in his length 
of leg and width of chest, he is known at Christchurch 
and on Richmond-green as Lusty Pakington ; and the 
good old Queen, who liked to see a man a Man, made 
him, for his brave looks, a Knight of the Bath. A great 
swimmer, an adroit swordsman, few who can help it 
ever care to wait the shock of his hasty temper or his 
vigorous thrust. The great man of his country-side, 
he sends his buck for the judges' table at assizes, and 
has his name put first on every commission from the 
Crown, whether the shire is called to raise forces against 
Spain, build light-houses in the Bristol Channel, or pro- 
vide for the wants of sick and disabled troops ; but when 
orders from the Crown oppose his own particular humor, 
as they sometimes do, he quietly puts them in the fire. 
The Privy Council has to be rather plain and rough 
with the jovial knight. Once he laid a wager to swim 
against three stout gallants from Westminster to Lon- 
don-bridge ; but the Queen forbade the match, lest some 
of the fools should get drowned He has a passion for 
building and digging on a princely scale. He buys a 
whole forest of trees for his salt-pits and for the great 
house which he is building at Westwood Park, and he 
sinks' a great farm of a hundred acres under water 



private papers preserved at Westwood, free access to which I owe to the oblig- 
ing courtesies of the Right Hon. Sir John Pakington, Bart., his descendant and 
successor. 






SIR JOHN PAKINGTON. 163 

that he may have room to swim and fish. Debt catches VII. 9. 
the generous spendthrift in its claws; and that which 
could not force him into meanness, lures him, at the Aug> 
age of fifty, into love. When maddened by duns, he 
swore to be free of such rogues, even if he had to give 
up London, and live on bread and verjuice. News that 
Sir John was going to forsake the town, to sell horses 
and dogs, and, for the time to come, live on his own 
estate, shoot in the woods round Hampton Lovet, and 
stick to the sessions of Worcester, as his father and 
grandfather had done before him, soon got wing ; when 
sixty stout gentlemen and yeomen of the shire, his 
friends and tenants, seated in their own saddles, pricked 
up to London, and waited for him at the palace-gates 
while he went in to bid the Queen adieu. Sorry to miss 
so fine a gentleman from her court, Elizabeth gave him 
an estate in Suffolk, worth from eight to nine hundred 
pounds a year, of traitor's land. Off he spurred to 
take possession ; but, on gaining the door of his new 
house, he found there a mourning lady with her chil- 
dren in despair. In place of kicking them out into 
the street, he ran away himself, nor ever rested in his 
bed till he got the Queen to take back her gift and 
bestow it on the weeping lady and her little brood. 
When a good friend in the city whispered in his ear 
the name of widow Barnham, the great affectionate fel- 
low, wanting to dig and build, and having no objection 
to four pretty girls to romp with him and love him, as 
they were sure to do, dashed into Cheapside, told his 



164 FRANCIS BACON. 

VII. 9. bashful little tale, and the young widow, wooed for the 
second time in her life, said Yes. 



1604. 
Aug. 



10. A brood of Pakingtons has joined the brood of 
Barnhams, — Mary, Ann, and John their names. Mary 
will live to become Lady Brook ; Ann first to become 
Lady Ferrars, then Countess of Chesterfield ; Jack will 
be the first baronet of his line ; and his son, Jack also, 
will be the famous cavalier who sacrificed so much for 
Charles the First, and who married Lady Dorothy, the 
friend of Hammond, and the reputed author of " The 
Whole Duty of Man." 

The Barnhams and Pakingtons keep house together ; 
in summer-time at Hampton Lovet, among the oaks and 
apple-trees ; in term and sessions, when the world rides 
up to town, they hire a lodging in the Strand, over 
against the door of the Savoy church. Their home is in 
Worcestershire, — a big stone house, in a wooded dell, 
close by Hampton-brook, and at the foot of Hornsgrove- 
hill, — a pile with flanking wings, a trim parterre in front, 
and five huge lanterns on the roof, from which nothing 
can be seen save the square, plain tower of the village 
church, the clasping zone of wood, and now and then a 
curl of ascending smoke from the Droitwich salt-pans. 
Near a mile from Hampton Lovet lie the ruins of an 
ancient abbey, which may possibly have been the scene 



10. I derive these details from the Westwood MSS., the stained glasses of 
Hampton Lovet church, and personal inspection of the localities, with the val- 
uable aid of Sir John and Lady Pakington. 






HAMPTON LOVET. 165 

of Sir Eoger's ghost. A chain of ponds, alive with fish VII. 10. 
and fed by natural springs, drips past the ruin, and be- 
yond these slants a bright green grassy upland, bare of A ' 
wood, from the top of which, a level table-land, the eye 
sweeps lovingly over wood and water, hill and hamlet 
and orchard ; near it the village spires of Ombersley and 
Hampton ; far away the cathedral towers of Worcester ; 
and in the distance, over leagues of country, powdered in 
May with the pink and white of innumerable apple-trees, 
in autumn warm with the ruddy glow of the ploughed 
red land, the bold purple ridge of the Malvern hills. On 
this plateau, high above the low-lying woods, Sir John 
has begun to build a big house and dig a big lake, — a 
house of rough red brick, with a grand hall and a state- 
room above it, panelled, carved, and tapestried, — a house 
like himself, thoroughly genuine and English, in which 
he is to die, and his descendants are to live. His new 
lake, close by his house, is the wonder and bugbear of 
the shire. 

11. Between this proud mother and this burly knight 
the course of Bacon's love for Alice has no great hope of 
running smooth. Lady Pakington adores great people ; 
thinking more of Sir Francis Bacon as a friend and 
favorite of the Lord Chancellor than she would have 
thought of him had he already published the Great In- 
stauration. Lady Egerton condescends to keep her in 

11. Bacon to Egerton, in Tanner MSS. 251, fol. 38 b; Doquets, Aug. 18, Oct. 
28, 1604, S. P. 0. 



166 FKANCIS BACON. 

VII. 11. good humor while the man of genius waits and labors 
for a better time. 

0ct 28 He has still to wait, even for that rise in his profession 
which is incontestably his due. On the death of Sir 
William Peryam, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and the 
third husband of his sister, Elizabeth Bacon, Fleming be- 
comes Chief Baron, yet the Solicitor ship, vacant once 
more, is given over his head to Sir John Doderidge, ser- 
geant of the coif. 

1605. 12. A brief reference in the charge against William 
NoY ' Talbot, a phrase here and there in his Essays, have told 
the world what Bacon thought of the Powder Plot. It 
has not been known that he had any part, slight or seri- 
ous, in repressing this foul conspiracy, the natural sequel 
of the Essex plot. 

The new facts are found in an unpublished letter from 
Bacon to Cecil. 
Nor. 8. The crime of Essex, the royal patronage of the con- 
spirators, have borne their fruit in the Westminster mine. 
It is the eighth of November, four days after the strange 
discovery made by Lord Monteagle. Fawkes is in the 
Tower. Catesby, Percy, Christopher and John Wright 
are riding through the midland shires, flinging away 
cloaks and scarfs, the country at their heels. The fight 
is not yet won. Jesuits peer from the slums of White- 
friars, and many who have come to town for the fifth of 

12. Bacon Jo Cecil, Nov. 8, 1605, S. P. 0.; Examination of John Drake, Nov. 
8, 1605, S. P. 0. 



1605, 

Nov. 8. 



LETTER TO CECIL. 167 

November still lurk among the sheds of Drury-lane. VII. 12, 
True citizens keep watch and ward, lest, maddened by 
defeat, some desperate villain should commit midnight 
murder or scatter midnight fire. 

John Drake, serving-man to Reynolds, a gentleman 
living in pleasant Holborn, hears a fellow named Beard 
declare that the plot was a brave plot, and that he, for 
one, regrets it has failed. Drake runs to his master, and 
Reynolds repeats to the Principal of Staple Inn the sus- 
picious words his servant has overheard. The Principal 
sees that here is no case for a city Dogberry, — Beard must 
be a Papist, may be a plotter. Away he posts with the 
ancients of his Inn to Bacon's rooms in Gray's Inn 
Square. The words are bad, but general, — may mean 
little, may mean much. The knave should certainly be 
caught and questioned. Bacon sends the examination 
of Drake to Cecil, with the following note : — 

Bacon to Cecil. 

Nov. 8, 1605. 
IT MAY PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP, 

I send an examination of one who was brought to 
me by the principal and ancients of Staple Inn, touching 
the words of one Beard, suspected for a Papist and prac- 
tiser, — being general words, but bad; and I thought 
not good to neglect anything at such a time ; so with 
signification of humble duty, I remain, at your Lord- 
ship's honorable commands, most humbly, 

F. Bacon. 



168 FRANCIS BACON. 

.VII. 13. 13. Even the atrocious plot of Fawkes and Garnet, 

though its success would have been death to him, as to 
1606. ' _ _ . 

Jan so many more, does not sour Bacon into a persecutor. 

He classes their crime with the massacres of Paris ; 
but while the bigots find in these monstrous aberra- 
tions a plea for hanging and embowelling Roman Cath- 
olics who have taken no part in them, he finds, as wise 
and tolerant men see in them now, after a lapse of two 
hundred and sixty years, an argument against arming 
any one sect of men with the persecutor's sword. The 
traitor he gives up to the law ; the heretic is to him a 
brother who has lost his way. In the noblest and most 
original of his Essays, penned in the prime of his intel- 
lectual powers, he especially explains and defends this 
principle of toleration. But the doctrine of his book 
had been previously exercised as a virtue in his life. 
The lapse of Tobie Mathews from the English Church 
to Rome puts his tolerant philosophy to the proof. Born 
on the steps of the episcopal bench, his grandfather a 
bishop, his father a bishop, four of his uncles bishops, 
all his connections in the Church, the fall of this young 
man makes a noise in England loud as the apostasy of 
Spalatro makes in Rome. The Puritans would cut him 
off branch and bole. When he comes from Italy to 
London, having given up all his old delights, cards, 
wenches, wine, and oaths, some, who are not themselves 



13. Mathews to Carleton, July, 1606, S. P. 0.; Ap. to Sainsbury's Origi- 
nal Papers relating to Rubens, 341, 343; Bacon's Essays, ed. of 1625, No. 3 ; 
Mathews to Bacon, April 14, July 16, 1616, Lambeth MSS. 936. 



HIS TOLERATION. 169 

saints, would fling him into the Tower and leave him VH 13. 
there to die, as Spalatro, venturing into Rome, is sent 
to perish in the dungeons of St. Angelo. James is Jan 
bitterly incensed against him, looking on his fall as that 
of a column of his church ; his father drives him from 
his heart with a curse ; yet, when his whole kin spit 
on him and cast him forth, Bacon, strong in his sym- 
pathy for a scholar and a man who has lost his way, 
takes this outcast and regenerate pervert to his house. 
Though he fights against his friend's new doctrines, 
he never will consent, with the less tolerant world, to 
hunt him down for a change in his speculative views, 
which every eye can see has made him a better and a 
happier man. The philosopher may not be always able, 
by any sacrifice of name and credit, to shield this enthu- 
siast from the rage of sects, but he comforts him when in 
jail, procures leave for him to return from exile, softens 
towards him the heart of his father, and obtains for him 
indulgences which probably save his life. 

14. In the session which meets after the plot Bacon Feb. 
plays a most active and brilliant part. The whole world 
has come to town, — some to see that the King is safe, 
some to see the traitors hang. Among others have come 
up Sir John and Lady Pakington, together with the 
young ladies from Westwood Park. 

14. Carleton to Chamberlain, May 11, 1600, S. P. 0.; Wotton, i. 184; Heath's 
Preface to Bacon's Speech on the Jurisdiction of the Marches, vii. 569; Dom. 
Papers, James L, x. 86. 

8 



1606. 

Feb. 



170 FRANCIS BACON. 

VII. 14. Sir John has left behind him for a few weeks his brine- 
pits, his great pool, his herds of deer, his new house in 
the wood, his petty squabbles with the neighboring 
squires, and penned himself and the young ladies in 
a lodging of the Strand, not only that he may see the 
opening of parliament and hear the news, but that he 
may fight his way through two or three of his ugly 
scrapes. In digging his huge pond in Westwood Park, 
he has put under water some part of an old road, never 
doubting his power to do what he saw good on his own 
estate, the more so that he has given a turn to the road 
more convenient for himself and for every one else, A 
neighbor, between whom and Sir John no love is lost, 
seeing the flaw in this easy mode of making things 
straight, procures from the Crown an order to remove 
the pond and restore the King's ancient highway. This 
news he sends to Westwood, saying, with a politeness 
which the hot old gentleman reads for insult, that, 
though he has such an order in his hands, he shall 
not use it so long as the knight shall be pleased to live 
with him on friendly terms. Scorning to owe his pleas- 
ures to such a fellow, Sir John breaks down his banks, 
and, the pool lying high, the waters race and crash 
through the orchards, strewing the fields with dead fish 
for a mile or more, and discoloring the Severn as far off 
as Worcester for a week. Having let out his pool, he 
has come to answer for himself, and seek power to fill 
it with water and fish once more. 

A yet more serious quarrel with Lord Zouch has 



SIR JOHN PAKINGTON. 171 

helped to bring him up to town. As President of the "VH. 14. 

Council of Wales and the Welsh Marches, Lord Zouch 

1606. 
has for a long time claimed a certain jurisdiction over Feb 

the four border shires of Gloucester, Hereford, Salop, 
and Worcester ; a claim which the shires deny and re- 
sist, with loud speeches from the gentry, met by threats 
of force on the part of Zouch, tumultuous riding, sign- 
ing, and protesting, ending for a day in solemn appeals 
from the four shires to the House of Commons, and from 
the angry Council of Wales to the King. Sir Herbert 
Crofts, Knight of the shire for Hereford, has the cause 
against Zouch in hand. Sir John, who is Sheriff of 
Worcester, but not a Parliament man, having no tongue 
to wag, has yet a passionate interest in the appeal ; for 
Lord Zouch not only claims a certain authority in his 
county, but shows no sense of the respect due, even from 
a peer, to so great a man as Sir John. 

15. Alice is now near her lover, whom she may spy 
as he trots from Gray's Inn to Westminster, or lounges 
from the house towards Chancery-lane. Bacon sees 
many a rock ahead. He is still a simple knight, and 
he has the misery of differing from Sir John on the 
great question of Lord Zouch and the shires. 

Sir John can hardly make him out. Pakington is a 
Royalist, root and branch, one who has lent money to his 
Prince on Privy Seals, and who would draw a sword 

15. Com. Jour., i. 286, 299; App. to the Verney Papers, ed. by John 
Bruce, 281. 



172 FEANCIS BACON. 

VII. 15. for Church and King with the ready zeal which made 
his grandson famous among the soldiers of Charles the 
Feb< ' First ; yet this young lawyer, who has spent his life in 
recommending reforms, presumes to defend against him, 
loyal Sir John, the prerogatives of the Crown ! Wiser 
heads than that of the warm old Worcestershire knight 
are often at fault when trying to explain to themselves 
the relations of Bacon to the Puritan House of Com- 
mons and to the episcopal and regal court. Yet they 
seem to be easy" of explanation. It is, indeed, so rare 
for a man to stand on good terms with a hostile Crown 
and House of Commons, that it is often thought and 
sometimes found to be impossible. Winwood tried it. 
Strafford tried it. Pym would have tried it. But Win- 
wood lost favor with the House when he took office 
under the Crown ; lost favor at Court when he leaned 
to the Puritan opinions of the House. Strafford and 
Pym had each to choose a side. Bacon's position was 
far more lofty, and for years it seemed as if it were more 
secure. From his height of view and round of sym- 
pathy he is unable to throw himself, tongue and pen, 
into the exclusive and sectarian lines of either camp. 
His reconciling genius spans the dividing stream of 
party. Above the foolish Prince and petulent squires, 
he sees his country ; not merely the England of Ban- 
croft, of the Hampton Court Conference, of the Procla- 
mation against Papists ; but the England of a thousand 
years, of Alfred and of Edward, of Cressy and of Cadiz, 
of Chaucer and of Spenser ; the England of a glorious 



HIS LOFTY POSITION. 173 

past and a hopeful future ; the land which nurtured VII. 15. 

Wvcliffe and Caxton, which broke the spiritual bonds 

1606. 
of Leo, which crushed the invincible fleets of Spain. Feb 

This country he strives to arm, to free, to guide ; now 
by aiding the King in questions of revenue and of 
union ; now by aiding the House in questions of reform 
or war. In each he is consistent first and last. His first 
votes in the House were for supplies, his last speech will 
be for supplies. With no fear of the controversial genius 
of Rome, he feels a wholesome dread of the fleets and 
regiments of Spain ; those tracts by which Parsons, 
Schioppius, and Bellarmino sting the sleep from so many 
pillows pass him by ; but he cannot hear unmoved that 
the same Paul who has launched an interdict on Venice 
is forming a Roman Catholic League against England ; 
that the O'Neiles and O'Donnels, driven out from Ireland 
by Lord Montjoy, are hurrying home from Brussels and 
Madrid ; that rebels are drilling in the wilds of Con- 
naught and Ulster ; that Fajardo is manning his ships 
in Cadiz bay, and Brochero proffering his red hand to 
brush away Virginia with steel and flame. Willing to 
meet the men of words with words, he is not less eager 
to meet the men of war with steel and lead, the mid- 
night assassin with the chain, the gibbet, and the cord. 
Now, to starve the Crown is to leave England weak. 
True, the Prince is lax, and moneys voted for the mus- 
ters and the fleets may chance to drop into the pouches 
of Hume and Herbert and Carr ; yet of two dark evils 
he chooses to dare the least, seeing that to pare down 



1606. 

Feb. 



174 FRANCIS BACON. 

VII. 15. the subsidies, as many virtuous and unreasoning squires 
propose, is to subject James and his needy servants to 
the magnificent corruptions of Lerma, the great minister 
of Spain, already suspected, and with truth, of having 
taken the chief men of the Privy Council and the Bed- 
chamber into his pay. Better own the King's debts than 
let Lerma pay them. Therefore, while he speaks with 
Hastings and Hyde against patents, wardships, private 
monopolies, the whole tag-rag of feudal privilege, he 
constantly votes with Hitcham and Hobart for those 
supplies which are necessary to maintain the splendor 
of the Crown and the efficiency of the musters and the 
fleet. 

Here he parts from the majority ; wide as in his vote 
for union with the Scots. 

16. Cecil, knowing his kinsman free from selfish and 
sectarian views, consults him on the money-bills and set- 
tlements. The debates on a grant for the new reign are 
about to come on ; and Cecil, who as Earl of Salisbury 
sits in the Peers, has begun to feel his need of a bold and 
influential friend in the Lower House. He hints that 
the Court shall no longer oppose Bacon's rise at the bar. 
On his part, Bacon is ready to assist the Crown in pro- 
curing an ample grant ; to shape drafts and preambles 
such as may disarm the resentment of knight and squire. 
Cecil takes him at his word, and Bacon drafts a bill. 
Here is a note which shows how he is nearing power : — 

16. Bacon to Cecil, Feb. 10, 1606, S. P. 0. 



1 BILL OF SUPPLY. 175 

Bacon to the Earl of Salisbury. VH 16. 

Feb. 10, 1606. 



1606. 
Feb. 10. 



It may please your good Lordship, — 
I cannot as I would express how much I think myself 
bounden to your Lordship for your tenderness over my 
contentments. But herein I will endeavor hereafter as I 
am able. I send your Lordship a preamble for the sub- 
sidy, drawing which was my morning's labor to-day. 
This mould or frame, if you like it not, I will be ready to 
cast it again, de novo, if I may receive your honorable 
directions : for any particular corrections, it is in a good 
hand ; and yet I will attend your Lordship (after to- 
morrow's business, and to-morrow ended, which I know 
will be wearisome to you) to know your further pleasure : 
and so in all humbleness I rest at your Lordship's honor- 
able commands more your ever bounden 

F. Bacon. 

17. After warm debates in the Lower House a bill goes 
up to the throne for two subsidies and four fifteenths, Mar. n. 
payable in eighteen months. It is not enough. Hitcham, 
member for Lyme, a patriotic fighting town on the Dorset 
coast, proposes in committee a second grant of two sub- 
sidies, four in all. A dozen members rise at once. Peake 
will hear no more about the royal debts. Holt declares 
the proposition of Hitcham dangerous. Paddye will tell 

17. Hoby to Edmonds, Mar. 7, 1606 ; Cecil to Earl of Mar, Mar. 9, 1606, 
S. P. O. ; Com. Jour., i. 281 - 84. 



1606. 

March. 



176 FEANCIS BACON. 

VII. 17. the King that even kings must not do wrong. Noy de- 
claims against spoiling the poor to gorge the rich. Dyer 
and Holcroft hint that more than once demands like these 
have been met by the cry, " To arms ! " But the warm- 
est speaker is Lawrence Hyde of West Hatch, member for 
Marlborough. Courtiers shrink from an unequal contest. 
Sir Edward Hoby, an observant politician, friendly to his 
kinsman Cecil and the court, notes how poor a figure the 
King's official friends make in that masculine and stormy 
House. 

Mar. is. 18. Bacon starts to the front. In the midst of a noisy 
sitting of the committee, word comes down from White- 
hall that James will not wait, — that the bill must be 
passed, or the undutiful members shall feel his ire. Such 
words, now frequent, make the King odious and con- 
temptible. A storm sets in ; the members fling back 
threat for threat ; the bill is lost. 

This scene takes place on Tuesday. On Thursday the 
committee meets again ; the King has not accepted his 
defeat, nor will the Commons enlarge their vote. Satur- 
day brings no change of mood. On Monday the com- 
mittee must report to the House ; and Bacon, who has 
been made reporter, will have to report against his own 
convictions of what is best for the country and the 
Crown. He sees the committee sullen, almost savage. 
Monday is the anniversary of the King's accession, yet 
no one rises to propose a holiday. 

18. Bacon to Cecil, Mar. 22, 1606, S. P. ; Com. Jour., i. 288; Jonson's 
Epigrams, 41; a Proclamation touching a Seditious Rumor, Mar. 22, 1606. 



1606. 

Mar. 22. 



LETTER TO EARL OF SALISBURY. 177 

Fagged with work, he must ride down to Gorhanibury VII. 18. 
for a day of rest. He does not wish to appear as if 
flying from his post, so he takes up his pen and 
writes : — 

Bacon to the Earl of Salisbury. 

This Saturday, the 22d of March, 1606. 
IT MAY PLEASE YOUR GOOD LORDSHIP, — 

I purpose upon promise rather than business to make 
a step to my house in the country this afternoon, which, 
because your Lordship may hear otherwise, and there- 
upon conceive any doubt of my return to the pursuance 
of the King's business, I thought it concerned me to 
give your Lordship an account that I purpose (if I 
live) to be there to-morrow in the evening, and so to 
report the subsidy on Monday morning ; which, though 
it be a day of triumph, yet I hear of no adjournment, 
and therefore the House must sit. But if, in regard of 
the King's servants' attendance , you Lordship conceive 
doubt the House will not be well filled that day, I 
humbly pray your Lordship I may receive your direc- 
tion for the forbearing to enter into the matter that 
day. I doubt not the success, if those attend that 
should. So I rest, in all humbleness, at your Lord- 
ship's honorable commands, 

F. Bacon. 

An hour after this note is penned a rumor rises, none 
8* L 



178 FKANCIS BACON. 

VII. 18. knows how, that the king is dead. Some say he has 
been shot ; some, stabbed ; some, smothered in his bed. 

Mar 22 ^° one as ^ s wnere the King is ; all agree that he is 
killed. Members rush to the Council, to the city, — but 
the ministers, the aldermen, know as little as themselves. 
Some spur for Theobalds, some for Royston. London 
yields itself to the wildest terrors. Hundreds of men 
concerned in the Powder Plot are still at large. Garnet 
is still unhung ; the priests are sworn to have blood for 
blood ; the Jesuits, it is said, have threatened to burn 
London to ashes, to massacre all the Protestants, should 
that shining example of Christian virtue come to harm. 
Citizens bar their doors, and swing on their Toledo 
blades. 

A. horseman, Sir Herbert Crofts, dashes into Palace 
Yard. He has seen the King ! The King is safe, and 
near the town. Fear now mutinies into joy. Bells 
laugh over London roofs, crowds ride in procession to 
meet their Prince. If he is safe, the realm is safe. 
The Peers and Commons go to "Whitehall. Ben Jon- 
son bursts into music. As night comes down, the 
streets start out with fire, and the taverns of Fleet- 
street and Cheapside roar with patriotic songs. 

Mar. 25. 19. Sunday and Monday pass in rejoicings and recep- 
tions. Tuesday brings up Bacon. He has not, he tells 
the House of Commons, drawn a word-for-word report 

19. Com. Jour., i. 286, 299; Cecil to Wotton, Mar. 19, June 18, 1606, S.P. 0.; 
Statutes 3 Jacobi, c. 26. 



SUBSIDY GKANTED. 179 

from the committee, for his soul is shaken with too "TO. 19. 
much fear and joy. What, he cries, are a few debts to 
the exultation now straining every loyal heart? These Mar , 2 5. 
debts are less the King's than the late Queen's. The 
Queen made war, the country must repair the ravages 
of war. Eeparation costs money. The Crown debts, 
too, must be paid in full, next year if not this year; 
and why prefer a vote one session to a vote another 
session ? The House can name its time ; but he says, 
Vote to-day! In that rapturous and sacred moment, 
when a great alarm has pressed heart to heart, and 
made the whole nation one, he calls on the gentlemen 
of England to crown their own happy work by voting 
the subsidies necessary to support the power of the 
country, the independence of the Crown. 

His eloquence bears away the House. Hyde fronts 
the stream; but the tide has turned towards White- 
hall, and he strives against genius and enthusiasm, if 
manfully yet in vain. A bill for another subsidy is 
passed. 

20. In the flush of this triumph, with his fame now May 6. 
fixed, and with a great place, won by himself, not tossed 
to him by a patron, within reach of his hand (not, as 
Lord Campbell says, when he is poor and down in the 
summer of the Queen's death), he begs the lady of his 



20. Bacon to Egerton, Tanner MSS. 251, fol. 38 b; Kawley's Resuscitatio, 
41; Domestic Papers, James I, xix. 33; Heath's Preface, Bacon's Works, 
vii. 576. 



180 FKANCIS BACON. 

VII. 20. love to name her day. Three years ago they were 
pledged to each other ; he could have made her Lady 
May . Bacon, then, or at any time since then ; but he has 
hoped to give to his bride a more settled fortune 
and a more illustrious name. Renown beyond the 
dreams of woman he can give her. Nor is he poor in 
those worldly gifts which girls are taught to covet even 
more than character and fame. Besides the grants 
bestowed upon him by Elizabeth, the reversion in the 
Star Chamber (not yet fallen in), and the leases of 
Cheltenham and Charlton Kings, of the Pitts and Twick- 
enham Park, the death of poor Anthony (dead of the 
vices and excesses caught from his noble friend) has 
given him Gorhambury and the lands about it, where 
he now lives when not at Gray's Inn, and where, in 
after years, he will build Verulam House by the pond, 
taking his house, as he says, to the water, when the 
water will no longer flow to his house. More than all, 
the patent of Solicitor-General may be now sealed to 
him any day or week, a post of not less value than 
three or four thousand pounds a year, with openings to 
higher office and greater pay, to the Privy Council, the 
Peerage, and the Seals. He is rich, too, in genius and 
in noble friends. If Cecil plays witli him fast and loose, 
the Lord Chancellor pushes his fortunes at the bar, and 
Lady Egerton smooths his suit with the young beauty 
and with her domineering kin. Sir John is in high 
spirits. True, the bill to exempt the four shires from 
Lord Zouch's jurisdiction has been dropped by the Lords ; 



HIS MARRIAGE. 181 

but the king has assured Sir Herbert Crofts with his VII. 20. 
own lips that right shall be done ; and the loyal country 
gentleman believes that when a prince promises to do 
right he will of course maintain his word. 
The day is named ; the tenth of May. 

21. By help of Sir Dudley Carleton we may look upon May 10 
the pleasant scene, upon the pretty bride, the jovial 
knight, the romping girls, and the merry company, as 
through a glass. Feathers and lace light up the rooms 
in the Strand. Cecil has been warmly urged to come 
over from Salisbury House. Three of his gentlemen, 
Sir Walter Cope, Sir Baptist Hicks, and Sir Hugh Bee- 
ston, hard drinkers and men about town, strut over 
in his stead, flaunting in their swords and plumes ; yet 
the prodigal bridegroom, sumptuous in his tastes as in 
his genius, clad in a suit of Genoese velvet, purple from 
cap to shoe, outbraves them all. The bride, too, is 
richly dight ; her whole dowry seeming to be piled up 
on her in cloth of silver and ornaments of gold. The 
wedding rite is performed at St. Marylebone chapel, 
two miles from the Strand, among the lanes and suburbs 
winding towards the foot of Hampstead Hill. Who that 
is blessed with any share of sympathy or poetry cannot 
see how that glad and shining party ride to the rural 
church on that sunny tenth of May ? how the girls will 
laugh a ad Sir John will joke, as they wind through lanes 

21. Carleton to Chamberlain, May 11, 1606, S. P. 0.; Bacon's Will; Sped- 
ding's Bacon, i. 8. 



182 FRANCIS BACON. 

VII. 21. now white with thorn and the bloom of pears ? how the 
bridesmaids scatter rosemary and the groomsmen strag- 
m X q gle for the kiss ? Who cannot imagine that dinner in 
the Strand, though the hunchback Earl of Salisbury has 
not come over to Sir John's lodging to taste the cheer 
or kiss the bride ? "We know that the wit is good, for 
Bacon is there ; we may trust Sir John for the quality of 
his wine. 

Alice brings to her husband two hundred and twenty 
pounds a year, with a further claim, on her mother's 
death, of one hundred and forty pounds a year. As 
Lady Pakington long outlived Bacon, that increase never 
came into his hands. Two hundred and twenty pounds 
a year is his wife's whole fortune. What is not spent in 
lace and satins for her bridal dress, he allows her to in- 
vest for her separate use. From his own estate he settles 
on her five hundred pounds a year. 

Now, in what sense can a marriage in which there 
seems to be a good deal of love, and in which there 
certainly is no great flush of money, be called, on Bacon's 
side, a mercenary match ? 

June. 22. A slight more galling than has yet been put on 
him awaits the close of his honeymoon. Only a few days 
after his marriage to Alice, Sir Francis Gawdy, of the 
Common Pleas, stricken with apoplexy, is removed from 
his chambers at Sergeants' Inn to Easton Hall, where he 

22. Foss's Judges of England, vi. 158, 306, 329: Chron. Jurid. 181; Montagu, 
v. 297 ; Council Keg., Oct. 14, 1606. 






AGAIN SLIGHTED. 183 

soon after dies. Coke goes up to the bench, and Dod- VII. 22. 
eridge, the Solicitor-General, ought by the custom of the 
law to follow Coke, leaving the post of Solicitor void. June ' 
But Sir Francis G-awdy having been a partisan of the 
Essex faction, and his daughter married to the son of 
Lady Rich, Cecil, either anxious not to offend that power- 
ful faction, which he has made his own by a double con- 
tract of marriage, or doubtful of his cousin's subserviency 
in office, sets aside the usual order of promotion at the 
bar, and raises Sir Henry Hobart, his obscure Attorney July 4 . 
of the Court of Wards, over Doderidge's as well as over 
Bacon's head, to the high place of Attorney-General. Oct. 
Bacon complains to Egerton and Cecil of the insult even 
more than the wrong of such a trick. The Lord Chan- 
cellor, who sees the error made by the government in 
alienating the most powerful man in the House of Com- 
mons, proposes to heal the wound by asking Sir John 
Doderidge to yield his patent to Bacon, taking in ex- 
change the place of King's Sergeant, together with a 
promise of the first seat that shall fall vacant in the 
King's Bench. To this Sir John and Cecil both object. 

23. When Parliament meets in November to discuss Nov. 
the Bill of Union, Bacon stands back. The King has 
chosen his Attorney ; let the new Attorney fight the 
King's battle. The adversaries to be met are bold and 

23. Carleton to Chamberlain, Dec. 18, 1606, S. P. 0.; Foster to Mathews, 
Feb. 16, 1607, S. P. 0.; Com. Jour., i. 314, 333; Lane's Keports in the Court 
of Exchequer, 22, 31; M'Crie's Life of Melville, ii. 234, 



184 FRANCIS BACON. 

VII. 23. many. During the recess Cecil has imposed on the 
country a Book of Kates, pretending that taxes may be 
Nov lawfully laid in the King's ports at the King's pleasure. 
John Bates, a merchant trading with Venice, resisting a 
tax unsanctioned by the House of Commons, has been 
condemned in the Court of Exchequer ; but this con- 
demnation of Bates rousing a nation of tax-payers, from 
every port into which ships can float come protests 
against Sir Thomas Fleming's reading of the law. Be- 
yond the Tweed, too, people are mutinous to the point 
of war ; for the countrymen of Andrew Melville begin 
to suspect the King of a design against the Kirk, and 
Melville himself, lured by a false pretence from St. An- 
drew's to London, has been nrovoked into an indiscretion, 
and clapped in the Tower. 

Under such crosses, the Bill on Union fares but ill. 
Fuller, the bilious representative of London, flies at the 
Scots. The Scots in London are in the highest degree 
unpopular. Lax in morals and in taste, they will take 
the highest place at table, they will drink out of any- 
body's can, they will kiss the hostess or her buxom maid 
without saying, " By your leave." Brawls fret the tav- 
erns which they haunt ; pasquins hiss against them from 
the stage. Such broils distract the poor King, who sees 
no way to put them down save by commanding Popham 
to whip and pillory the rogues who beat his countrymen 
and friends. Three great poets, Jonson, Chapman, and 
Marston, go to jail for a harmless jest against these Scots. 
Such acts of rigor make the name of Union hateful to the 
public ear. 






BILL OF UNION. 185 

Hobart goes to the wall. James now sees that the bat- VII. 23. 
tie is not to the weak nor the race to the slow. Bacon has 
only to hold his tongue and make his terms. Alarmed Dec 
lest the Bill of Union may be rejected by an overwhelm- 
ing vote, Cecil suddenly adjourns the House. He must 
get strength. The plan proposed by Egerton for making 
Doderidge a King's Sergeant, Bacon the Solicitor-General, 
is revived. Pressed on all sides, here by the Lord Chan- 
cellor, there by a mutinous House of Commons, Cecil at 
length yields to his cousin's claim, Sir John Doderidge 
bows his neck, and when Parliament meets after the 
Christmas holidays Bacon holds in his pocket a written 
engagement for the Solicitor's place. 

24. The Bill of Union, drawn by Egerton, consists of 1607. ■ 
four parts : hostile laws, border laws, laws of commerce, Feb - 14, 
laws of navigation. Three of these parts present no diffi- 
culties to the House of Commons. Statutes which forbid 
a Scot to pass the Tweed, which fill the dales of Ettrick 
and Yarrow with feud and slaughter, which prohibit the 
sale of English wool in Scotland and of Scottish furs in 
England, find no advocates. All the old barbarous laws 
are at once annulled. But the knights and burgesses 
resist the King's design of naturalizing the whole Scot- 
tish population. 

Nicholas Fuller reopens the debate. A union of these 
two countries, says the uncivil member for London, would 
be a marriage of the rich with the poor, the strong with 

24. Com. Jour., i, 333-337 ; Lords' Jour., ii. 469, 472 ; Statutes, 4 Jac. c. 1. 



186 FEANCIS BACON. 

VII. 24. the weak. With the pardonable pride of a London bur- 
gess he points to the arts, the industry, and wealth of 

Feb. 14. England, to its orchards swelling with fruit, its pastures 
fat with kine, its waters white with sails, to its thriving 
people, abundant agriculture, inexhaustible fisheries, 
woods, and mines. With all these riches he contrasts 
a land of crags and storms, peopled by a race of men 
rude as their climate, poor in resources and in genius, 
a nation with peddlers for merchants, and two or three 
rotten hoys for a fleet. Such countries, he contends, are 
best apart. What man in his senses, having two estates 
divided by a hedge, one fruitful, one waste, will break 
down his fence and let the cattle stray from the waste 
into garden and corn-field ? Will any one mingle two 
swarms of bees ? why then two hostile swarms of men ? 
England is bare as the land round Bethel ; so that nature 
and God call out to separate the nations, as Lot chose the 
left hand, Abraham the right. He denies that the King's 
accession has changed the relations of the Saxon to the 
Scot ; and sits down with demanding whether, if Mary had 
borne a son to Philip, that son being heir to his father's 
crowns, an English Parliament would have naturalized 
the people of Sicily and Spain ? 

25. The speech makes a deep impression. Fuller speaks 
to men convinced ; men sore from daily wrongs and in- 
sults. Bacon, rising to reply, begins with that shower of 

25. Speech by Sir Francis Bacon in the House of Commons concerning the 
Naturalization of the Scots, 1641 ; Wilson, 37. 



DEBATE ON UNION BILL. 187 

image and illustration which his experience tells him is VII. 25. 
never lost on a learned and poetic House. He begs his 
hearers to forget all private feuds, to raise their minds to Feb 17 
questions of the highest state ; not as merchants dealing 
with mean affairs, but as judges and kings charged with 
the weal of empires. Glancing in scorn at Fuller, he 
passes with his light laugh the moral of that tale of Abra- 
ham and Lot, a parting cursed with a cruel war and a 
long captivity, to his illustration of the fence. The King, 
Bacon says, threw down the fence when he crossed the 
Tweed ; yet the flock of Scots has not yet followed through 
the rent. Proud and lavish, doting on dress and show, 
the Scottish gentleman will rather starve at home than 
betray his poverty abroad. The Roman commons fought 
for the right to name Plebeian consuls, and, when they 
had won the right, voted for Patricians : so with the 
Scots : they claim the privilege of coming into England ; 
yield the right, and they will not come. It is said the 
land is full. London, he grants, is thronged and swol- 
len, — not the open downs and plains. France counts 
more people to the mile. Flanders, Italy, Germany ex- 
ceed us in population. Are there no English towns 
decayed ? Are there no ancient cities heaps of stones ? 
Why, marsh grows on the pasture, pasture on the 
plough-land. Wastes increase ; the soil cries loud for 
hands to sow the corn and reap the harvest. But this 
bill for naturalizing the Scots stands on a far higher 
ground. A people, warlike as the Romans and as our- 
selves, a race of men, who, like wild horses, are hard to 



188 FRANCIS BACON. 

VII. 25. control because lusty with blood and youth, offer to be 
one people with us, friends in the day of peace, allies in 
Feb ' the day of strife. Take from the Scots this brand of 
aliens, they will stand by our side, bulwarks and defend- 
ers against the world. Should you shut them out from 
England, treating them as strangers and enemies, they 
may prove to you what the Pisans proved to Florence, 
the Latins to Rome. In our ancient wars the invader 
found the gates of our kingdom open. France could 
enter through Scotland, Spain through Ireland. Pass 
this bill, we close our gates. No minor argument de- 
serves a thought. Union is strength, union is defence. 
You object that the Scots are poor. Are not strong 
limbs better than riches ? Has not Solon told us the 
man of iron is master of the man of gold ? Does not 
Macchiavelli pour his scorn at the false proverb which 
makes money the sinews of war ? The true sinews of 
war are the sinews of valiant men. Leave, gentlemen, to 
the Spaniards the delusion that a heap of gold, niched 
from a feeble race, can give the dominion of the world. If 
union with the Scots will not bring riches to our doors, it 
will bring safety to our frontiers, will give us strength at 
sea and reserves on land. Alone we have borne our flag 
aloft ; with Scotland united in arms, with Ireland settled 
and at peace, with our war fleets on every sea, our mer- 
chants in every port, we shall become the first power in 
the world. Warmed with such glorious hopes, how can 
the gentleman of England stand upon terms and audits, 
— upon mine and thine, — upon he knows not what ! 



DEBATE ON UNION BILL. 189 

26. The House rings with applause. Cecil sends a VII. 26. 
copy of this speech to James ; and, in the midst of his 
trials, it is some pleasure to the poor pedant to see Feb> 
what splendid things a practical statesman and philoso- 
pher can say for his favorite scheme. 

If the Union is postponed till another generation, 
its eloquent advocate gains his place. 

Lord Campbell assumes that Egerton's plan for Ba- June 25. 
con's promotion failed, and that he rose into office 
through the changes on Popham's death. These are 
mistakes. Fleming succeeds Popham, Tanfield succeeds 
Fleming, and Hobart remains Attorney. To create a 
vacancy, Doderidge has to take the coif, when Bacon's 
commission as the King's Solicitor-General immediately 
passes the Seal. 

26. Cecil to Lake, April 16, 1607, S. P. 0.; Chron. Jurid., 183. 



190 FRANCIS BACON. 



1607. 
June 25, 



CHAPTER VIII 



SOLICITOR-GENERAL. 



VIII. 1. 1. On the twenty-fifth of June, 1607, at the age of 
forty-six years and five months, Bacon entered office. 
During the six years which he acted as Solicitor-General, 
Lord Campbell has found no flaw in his practice, — 
abstinence which is due in part to the circumstance 
that for these six years, with the unimportant exception 
of the trial of Lord Sanquhair for murder, Lord Camp- 
bell has overlooked every fact in Bacon's life. If there 
is nothing to relate, there may be nothing to condemn. 
Yet there is much in the story of these six years, — 
years in which he wrought at the Essays and shaped 
out the New Philosophy ; in which, to his personal dis- 
quiet, he resisted the design of Sir John Pakington 
and his friends to abridge the authority of the Court 
of Wales ; in which, at his personal risk and loss, he 
aided to plant Virginia and Ulster ; in which, against 
his professional interests, he engaged in many a good 
fight for popular liberties against the Crown, — which 
men of sense and spirit will wish for the sake of ex- 
ample to keep alive. 

1. Campbell's Life of Bacon, iii. 56. 



POSITION OF CECIL. 191 

2. Cecil is now at his height of fortune. On the VIII. 2. 

sudden, dramatic death of Dorset, the most daring of 

. 1608. 

poets, the most prudent of financiers, Cecil takes the April 

White Staff without parting from his office as premier 
Secretary of State. He is now nearly all in all. Ex- 
cept in naval affairs, in which Nottingham's great age 
and eminence as a sailor forbid all meddling, no depart- 
ment of the public service, home or foreign, trade, po- 
lice, finances, law, religion, war, and peace, escapes the 
quick eye and controlling hand of the tiny hunchback. 
Every one serves him, every enterprise enriches him. 
He builds a new palace at Hatfield, a new Exchange 
in the Strand. Countesses intrigue for him. His son 
marries a Howard, his daughter a Clifford. Ambassa- 
dors start for Italy, less to see Doges and Grand Dukes 
than to pick up pictures and statues, bronzes and hang- 
ings for his vast establishment at Hatfield Chace. Gar- 
deners travel through France to buy up for him mulber- 
ries and vines. Salisbury House on the Thames almost 
rivals the luxurious villas of the Roman Cardinals in 
wealth of tapestry, of furniture, and plate. Yet under May. 
this blaze of worldly success Cecil is the most miserable 
of men. Friends grudge his rise ; his health .is broken : 
the reins which his ambition draws into his hands are 
beyond the powers of a man to grasp ; and the vigor of 
his frame, wasted by years of voluptuous license, fails 
him at the moment when the strain on his faculties is 
at the full. 

2. Eure to Cecil, April 27, 1608, S. P. 0. ; Chamberlain to Carleton, July 7, 
1608; Provisoes between Salisbury and Morral, Dec. 1608, S. P. O. 



1608. 

Aug. 



192 FRANCIS BACON. 

VIII 3. 3. In this strain of powers no longer fresh, in this 
solitude of severed friendships, in this misery of broken 
health, Cecil tnrns to his hale, bright cousin, not for the 
companionship he will not give, but for the hints and 
helps a lawyer has to sell. Bacon does not love him. 
More than Coke, Cecil has been to him a cross and grief; 
for, while he can fight with his own weapons the coarse 
and spiteful foe, his gentle heart supplies no armory 
of defence against the cold and veiled contempt of 
his perfidious friend. When this agonized spectre of 
success invites him to more frequent consultations on 
affairs, instead of gliding into that kindly and gra- 
cious correspondence which is the habit of his pen, he 
chooses to stand with him on the ceremonial footing of 
good manners and the duties of his place. While writ- 
ing notes of business like the following, Bacon may 
have in mind the day, not long ago, when the Earl 
of Salisbury declined to cross the Strand to taste the 
hypocras and kiss the bride : — 

Bacon to Salisbury. 

Aug. 24. This Wednesday, the 24th of Aug. 1608. 

It may please your Lordship, — 
I had cast not to fail to attend your Lordship to- 
morrow, which was the day your Lordship had ap- 
pointed for your being at London ; but having this day 
about noon received knowledge of your being at Ken- 

3. Bacon to Cecil, Aug. 24, 1608, S. P. 0.; Essays, xliv. 



THE COURT OF WALES. 193 

sington, and that it had pleased your Lordship to send VIII. 3. 
for me to dine with you as this day, I made what dili- 
gence I could to return from Gorhambury ; and though Aug> ^ 
I came time enough to have waited on your Lordship 
this evening, yet, your Lordship being in so good a 
place to refresh yourself, and though it please your 
Lordship to use me as a kinsman, yet I cannot leave 
behind me the shape of a Solicitor. I thought it better 
manners to stay till to-morrow, what time I will wait 
on you. And, at all times rest, your Lordship's most 
humble and bounden, 

F. Bacon. 

To the last hour of Cecil's life, Bacon keeps this 
ceremonial style. No kindness flows between the cous- 
ins ; they talk of business, not of love ; and when Cecil 
passes to his rest, a new edition of the Essays, under 
cover of a treatise on Deformity, paints in true and 
bold lines, but without one harsh touch, the genius of 
the man. 

4. The feud of the four shires is again ablaze. Sir Nor. 
John Pakington has found that the King's promise to 
do right has borne no fruit for him or for his friends 
sweeter than the sour crabs of his own orchard. Lord 
Zouch is gone, and Lord Eure, with a new set of stand- 
ing orders, reigns in his stead ; yet the Court of Wales, 

4. Cott. MSS. Vit., c. 1; Dom. Papers of James the First, xxviii. 48, xxxii. 
13, 14, S. P. 0. ; Heath's Preface, Bacon's Works, vii. 584. 

9 M 



194 FRANCIS BACON. 

VIII. 4. under this new President, is no less warm to maintain 
its right than under the old. Indeed, in the belief of 
Not ' wise and practical men, the time has not arrived for 
either abolishing the court or interfering with its powers. 
This Court of Wales and the Welsh Border, like the 
more important Court of the North, was erected as a 
defence against Papist Missionaries and Papist plots. 
The gentry of Wales and of the Border shires were 
mainly Roman Catholic ; and every villain who in Eliza- 
beth's time disturbed the public peace, and brought 
shame or punishment on the members of the Roman 
Church, reckoned on the aid of an army of fighting and 
fanatical Sir Hughs. The Court of Wales kept them 
under. The poor, who wished to smelt the iron-ore, to 
feed their sheep, to dredge their streams for pearls, and 
net their bays for fish, in peace, blessed it for this boon, 
and not for this alone ; for this royal Court gave them 
such cheap and speedy justice as could not be obtained 
in counties governed by the ordinary courts under the 
common law. If prompt and stern, its rule was national 
in spirit, popular in aim. The abuses which crept in a 
few years later, and which caused its fall, were of a kind 
unknown in the days of Elizabeth, and only just begin- 
ning to be known in the days of James. Charles the 
First gave a new aim to the Court, perverting the power 
created by Henry and fostered by Elizabeth as a defence 
of the national sentiment and national faith, into instru- 
ments of attack upon them ; then, indeed, but not till 
then, the Court of Wales fell under public odium, and 



1608. 

Not. 



THE COUET OF WALES. 195 

was swept away in the revolutionary storm. But the VIIL 4. 
men who destroyed it under Charles were not the men 
who complained of it under James. The Crofts, Hop- 
tons, Pakingtons, Sandys, Lees, Sheldons, Blounts, and 
Corbets who contested the authority of Lord Eure, were 
afterwards no less hot on the other side, voting and fight- 
ing against popular rights under Charles. 

5. To Sir John, and to country gentlemen like Sir 
John, the Court of Wales is not so much a national 
grievance as a personal offence. It takes from his place 
and dignity ; and he instructs his under-sheriff to refuse 
obedience to the precepts of such a Court. The gentry 
of Herefordshire are up in arms ; but people in the 
southern and middle shires suspect, as proves to be the 
fact ere long, that these loud cries against the Court of 
Wales come mainly from a wish on the part of a few 
magistrates to get rid of a popular and successful local 
power, which curbs for the common good their private 
feuds, and keeps a bright eye on the movements of their 
missionary priests. Many of those who cry loudest 
against the Court are said to find reasons for their dis- 
content in the commands of their confessors. Most of 
them are Papists, open or concealed. Sir Herbert Crofts, 
long passing for a firm Protestant, has within the year 
avowed himself a convert to the Church of Rome. Sir 



5. Eure to Salisbury, Jan. 26, 1608, S. P. 0.; Eure to Pakington, Jan. 3, 
1608, S. P. 0. ; Pakington to Eure, Jan. 17, 1608, S. P. 0. ; Council Reg., 
Nov. 2, 1613. 



x608. 

Not. 



196 FRANCIS BACON. 

VIII. 5. John adheres to the Church, but his near kinsman, 
Humphrey Pakington, is an active and dangerous re- 
cusant, whose name is constantly before the Privy Coun- 
cil. Lord Eure complains to Sir John. Sir John flatly 
refuses to obey his precepts. Eure writes to Lord Salis- 
bury that his powers must be preserved in full, or he 
shall feel it a duty to resign his place. 

6. Cecil consults Bacon, now become chief adviser 
of the Crown in all affairs of law, and finds his opinion 
on the jurisdiction of the Court of Wales, as in most 
things, the reverse of that pronounced by Coke. Coke 
is against Eure. A dry, stiff formalist, wanting the 
warmth of heart, the large round of sympathies which 
enable his illustrious rival at the bar to see into polit- 
ical questions with the eyes of a poet and a statesman, 
Coke can only treat a constituted court as a thing of 
words, dates, readings, and decisions ; not as a living 
fact in close relation to other living facts, and having 
in itself the germs of growth and change. A point of 
law is taken for debate before the judges, when Bacon 
appears in opposition to Sir John and his friends, and 
pronounces that argument on the Jurisdiction of the 
Marches which is printed in his works. After this hear- 
ing a proclamation from the King announces the con- 
firmed authority of the Court of Wales ; but the mag- 

6. Dom. Papers James the First, xxxvii. 53, 54, 56, S. P. 0.; Bacon's Works, 
vii. 587; Proclamation for the Continuance of the Authority and Jurisdiction 
of the Presidencies of the North and of Wales [Nov. 1608]. 



THE AMERICAN PLANTATIONS. 197 

istrates of the four shires continue their opposition, and Vin. 6. 
the case drags on for nine or ten years, until these mag- 
istrates drop the agitation in presence of more solemn 
facts. 



1608. 

Nov. 



7. In no History of America, in no Life of Bacon, 1609. 



have I found one word to connect him with the planta- 
tion of that great Republic. Yet, like Raleigh and 
Delaware, he takes an active share in the labors, a con- 
spicuous part in the sacrifices, through which the foun- 
dations of Virginia and the Carolinas are first laid. 

Like men of far less note, who have received far 
higher honors in America, Bacon pays his money into 
the great Company, and takes office in its management 
as one of the Council. To his other glories, therefore, 
must be added that of a Founder of New States. 

8. The causes which led Bacon, with most of his par- 
liamentary and patriotic colleagues, to join the Virginia 
Company with person and purse, are the same causes 
which move him to fight for the Union and the Sub- 
sidies. The plantation of Virginia is a branch of the 
great contest with Spain. 

England and Spain have long been rivals in planta- 
tion and discovery. Neither may claim for itself the 
wide continents of America by the happy exercise of 



7. Virginia Charter Book, May 23, 1609, S. P. 0. 

8. Fernando Gorges's Brief Relation, 3, 10; Charters of Virginia, April 10, 
1600, Mar. 9, 1607, May 23, 1609, S. P. O. 



May 23- 



198 FRANCIS BACON. 

Yin. 8. native genius ; for while a Genoese gave the south to 

Spain, a Venetian conferred the north on England. Fro- 
1609. 

May 23. bisher and Gilbert followed in the wake of Cabot, though 
in a different spirit and working to another end. In- 
flamed by tales of the Incas' shining palaces, Frobisher 
went forth in search of mines and gold ; Gilbert, who 
revived the spirit of the Great Discoverer, sailed to the 
far west and gallantly gave his life, not for the rewards 
of wealth and fame, but solely in the hope of extending 
English power and of converting souls to God. When 
he sank in the Golden Hind he left these tasks to his 
young half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, who lived to be 
the true Founder of the United States. 

Raleigh, trained to politics under the eyes of Elizabeth, 
saw that the battle-field of the two maritime powers lay 
in the waters and along the shores of the New World. 
Europe was peopled. But the prairie and the savannah, 
the forest and the lake of America were virgin fields, the 
homes of an expanding race, the seats of a mighty empire 
in the time to come. Who shall occupy this splendid 
scene ? Shall the New World become mainly English or 
mainly Spanish ? Shall the original type and seed of her 
institutions be a Free Press or a Holy Office ? Such ques- 
tions throb and thrill in the veins of Englishmen of every 
rank. 

9. They answer with one voice. While the Queen 
lived and Raleigh was free to spend his genius and his 

9. Smith's History, 88, 90; Nova Britannia, 1609; Jourdan's Discovery of the 



THE AMEEICAN PLANTATIONS. 199 

fortune on the work of discovery and plantation, it never VHI. 9. 
nagged. But when James came in, and, with his dread 
of heroism and adventure, flung the explorer of Guiana, May 23 
the founder of Virginia, into the Tower, as a first step 
towards receiving the Spanish ambassador, Yelasco, with 
proposals for a shameful peace, the old English spirit ap- 
peared to droop. Yelasco for a time said little of Vir- 
ginia, for the fires of the Armada and of Nieuport burned 
in many hearts ; but Lerma, in his letters to the King, 
reserved an exclusive right of the Spanish crown, based 
on a Papal bull, to all the soil of the New World from 
Canada to Cape Horn. When his agents in London 
found their season they made this claim ; when his admi- 
rals in the Gulf of Mexico felt their strength they chased 
the English from those seas as pirates. If the Spanish 
cruisers caught an English crew, they either slung them 
to the yard-arm or sent them prisoners to Spain. 

Ruled by a corporation of adventurers, tormented by 
these Spanish cruisers, unprotected by the royal fleets, 
the settlement on the James River falls to grief. A man 
of genius, Captain John Smith, more than once snatches 
it from the jaws of death. But the planters fight among 
themselves, depose Smith from power, and send back 
nothing to the Company save miserable complaints and 
heaps of glittering dust. The colony is on the verge of 
failure, when a threat from Spain to descend on the 
Chesapeake shoots new life into the drooping cause. All 

Barmudas, otherwise called the Isle of Divels, by Sir T. Gates, Sir G. Sommers, 
and Captain Newport, with divers others, 1610. 



1609. 

May 23. 



200 FRANCIS BACON. 

VIII. 9. generous spirits rush to the defence of Virginia. Bacon 
joins the Company with purse and voice. Montgomery, 
Pembroke, and Southampton, the noble friends of Shake- 
speare, join it. Nor is the Church less zealous. The 
ardent Abbott, the learned Hackluyt, lend their names. 
Money pours in. A fleet, commanded by Gates and 
Somers, sails from the Thames, to meet on its voyage 
at sea those singular and poetic storms and trials which 
add the Bermudas to our empire and The Tempest to 
our literature. 

10. One hundred and seventy-five years after Walter 
Raleigh laid down his life in Palace Yard for America, 
his illustrious blood paid for by Gondomar in Spanish 
gold, the citizens of Carolina, framing for themselves a 
free constitution, remembered the man to whose genius 
they owed their existence as a state. They called the 
capital of their country Raleigh. The United States can 
also claim among their muster-roll of Founders the not 
less noble name of Francis Bacon. Will the day come, 
when, dropping such feeble names as Troy and Syracuse, 
the people of the Great Republic will give the august 
and immortal name of Bacon to one of their splendid 
cities ? 

1610. 11. The session of 1610 shows Bacon in a characteristic 
Al,ril - scene. Bound by the traditions of his place to support 

* 

10. Statutes of North Carolina, c. xiv. 

11. Add. MSS., 11, 695; Lords' Journals, ii. 574. 



LIST OF GRIEVANCES. 201 

the King's measures in the House of Commons, when the VIII. 11. 
session opens, with a freedom which surprises the King's 
friends, and which Coke and Doderidge have never dared A ' 
to take, he both speaks and votes against the superior 
law-officers of the Crown. 

The List of Grievances has at length been shaped into 
a proposition, and laid before the House. This Great 
Contract, as the people call it, offers to buy from the 
Crown, either for a fixed sum of money to be paid down, 
or for a yearly rental, certain rights and dues inherited 
by the King from feudal times, which the change of man- 
ners and the refinements of society have made abominable 
to rich and educated men. Escutage, Knight-service, 
"Wardship of the body, Marriage. of heirs and of widows, 
Respite of homage, Premier seizin, every knight and squire 
in the land longs to suppress, as things which yield the 
King an uncertain income, but cover themselves with a 
certain shame. A group of feudal tenures which concern 
the dignity of the Crown, such as Sergeantry, Homage, 
Fealty, Wardship of land, and Livery, they propose to 
modify, so as to satisfy just complaints while preserving to 
the King all services of honor and ceremonial rite. Aids 
to the King they limit in amount ; suits, heriots, and 
escheats they leave untouched ; monopolies for the sale 
of wines, for the licensing of inns, for the importation of 
coal, they abrogate. In lieu of these reliefs, they offer 
the King one hundred thousand pounds a year. 

12. At first James will not listen. The terms of such a 

9* 



202 FRANCIS BACON. 

VIII. 12. contract touch, lie says, his honor. These privileges may 
"7" be of no moment to the Crown ; to part with them may 
April. ne ither lower its dignity nor abate its pride ; yet why 
should he be asked to part with them? Elizabeth had 
them. All the Plantagenets, all the Tudors had them. 
Why should the first of the Stuarts strip his Crown of 
privileges held by his predecessors for five hundred years ? 
But James is not true to his own folly. To resist a sale 
of the rags and dust of feudal power, if done on the 
ground of conscience, would to many seem respectable, 
to some heroic ; but the offer of a hundred thousand 
pounds a year tempts a man dogged by duns to compro- 
mise with his sense of right. He lends his ear ; he hints 
his willingness to treat. Will the Commons give a little 
more ? Will they take a little less ? If so, he will hear 
them ; if not, not. Cecil asks Fleming and Coke to de- 
clare whether James can lawfully sell the burdens on 
tenures, yet preserve to his Crown the tenures themselves. 

13. The chance of hurting Bacon, who pleads in office, 
as he always spoke when out of office, for the full sur- 
render of these feudal dues, is too much for Coke. Their 
feud has, indeed, grown fiercer as they have grown in 
years, flashing out even in the courts of law. " The less 
you speak of your own greatness," says Bacon in open 
court, " the more I shall think of it, and the more, the 
less." As Bacon contends that a sale of the burdens on 

12. Add. MSS., 11, 695; Com. Jotir., i. 419, 420. 

13. Spedding's Bacon, vii. 177; Add. MSS., 11, 695. 



1610. 

April. 



DEBATE ON FEUDAL TENUKES. 203 

tenures is in fact a sale of the tenures, Coke answers VIII. 13. 
Cecil that the King may, if it shall please him, sell the 
burdens, yet keep the tenures intact. James therefore 
sends to tell the Commons that he will sell to them for 
six hundred thousand pounds paid down, and a rental of 
two hundred thousand pounds a year, his rights of mar- 
riage, wardship, premier seizin, respite of homage, and 
reliefs. 

14. In these debates, the Solicitor-General, brushing 
away the distinctions of Coke and Fleming, urges on the 
House of Commons and on the Crown the wisdom of 
abolishing these feudal tenures both in name and fact. 
Tenures in capite and by knight-service, he says, have 
lost their virtue. When the sovereign summoned his 
liegemen to the field, Reason might have cried, — Hold 
fast all tenures which augment the national force ! But 
the King no longer leads his armies in the field or 
calls his vassals round his flag ; war has grown into a 
science, arms into a profession ; if an enemy should 
appear at Dover or Berwick, no man would now wait 
for the King's tenant to strike. In the musters for de- 
fence, holders in soccage stand foot to foot with holders 
by knight-service. In feudal ages the tenures meant 
defence ; but the usage and the idea has alike gone by ; 
and tenures no longer represent either force, honor, or 
obedience. 

15. Bacon pleads so well that after warm debates the jui y 23. 

14. Bacon's Speech, April, 1610; Lords' Jour., ii. 580. 



1610. 

July 23. 



204 FRANCIS BACON. 

VIII. 15. King consents to reduce his demands, the House of Com- 
mons to raise their price. The two powers draw nearer 
to each other, and a happy resolution seems about to 
cleanse away some of the very worst abuses of the feudal 
state. For two hundred thousand pounds a year the 
Crown agrees to renounce forever these feudal rights. 

How this Great Contract comes to an abrupt and igno- 
minious end, how King and Commons wrangle over 
the Book of Rates, and how a session that began so pros- 
perously closes in open strife between the people and 
their prince, not a single bill receiving the royal signa- 
ture, all this, though full of constitutional, and even of 
romantic interest, is a tale for the historian of England, 
not for the critic of Bacon's life. 

1612. 16. So long as his kinsman Cecil lives, Bacon sees no 
hope of rising in the world. In May, 1612, the Earl of 
Salisbury, Lord Treasurer of England, premier Sec- 
retary of State, and Master of the Court of Wards, 
worn out by fag of brain not less than by disease of blood, 
dies, and a burst of gladness breaks over court and coun- 
try at the news. His companions of the Privy Council 
traduce his fame, his tenants at Hatfield attack his park. 
Of all men living, the cousin he so deeply hurt is the least 
unjust. In an edition of the Essays, now in the press, 
Bacon paints him to the life : every one knows the por- 

15. King's Proclamation, Dec. 31, 1610; Add. MSS., 11, 695; Lords' Jour., ii. 
666-86; Statutes of the Realm, iv. 1207. 

16. Bacon's Essays, xliv. ; Apophthegms, Works, vii. 175. 



May. 



HIS OPINION OF CECIL. 205 

trait ; yet no one can pronounce this picture of a small, VIII. 16. 

shrewd man of the world, a clerk in soul, without a spark 

1612. 
of fire, a dash of generosity in his nature, unfair or even M 

unkind. The spirit of it runs in a famous anecdote. 
" Now tell me truly," says the King, " what think you 
of your cousin that is- gone ? " " Sir," answers Bacon, 
" since your Majesty charges me, I '11 give you such a 
character of him as if I were to write his story. I do 
think he was no fit councillor to make your affairs better. 
But yet he was fit to have kept them from growing 
worse." 

" On my so'l, man ! " says James, " in the first thou 
speakest like a true man, in the second, like a kins- 
man." 

17. From the day of Cecil's death, his prospects, 
clouded till now, begin to clear. If promotion pauses, 
it is only because the crowds of suitors perplex the 
King. Carr and Northampton claim the Treasurer's 
staff. Everybody begs the Court of Wards and Liveries. 
Sir Thomas Lake, Sir Henry Wotton, Sir Kalph Win- 
wood, Sir Henry Neville, each aspires to the rank of 
Secretary of State. The patriots put up Bacon's name 
for this great office, and shrewd observers fancy him 
nigh success. Poor James, unable to decide, hankering, 
though afraid, to make Carr his chief minister, puts 
the Treasury into commission for six months, gives the 
Wards to Carew, and startles the gossips of Whitehall 

17. Chamberlain to Carleton, Nov. 26, 1612, S. P. 0. 



206 FEANCIS BACON. 

VIII. 17. by announcing that, instead of employing either Bacon 
or Wotton, Win wood or Lake, he means for the future 
to be his own Secretary of State. 



1612. 



not. 18. Carew dying suddenly six months after his nom- 

ination, Bacon applies for the Court of Wards. His 
pay as Solicitor-General is only seventy pounds a year. 
Promised for his service to the Crown a place of profit, 
he points out in a letter to Carr that the Court of 
Wards is one for a lawyer rather than a courtier to 
hold. 

Bacon to Lord Rochester. 

Nov. 14, 1612. 

It may please your good Lordship, — 
This Mastership of the Wards is like a mist, — some- 
times it goeth upwards and sometimes it falleth down- 
wards. If it go up to great lords, then it is as it was 
at the first ; if it fall down to mean men, then it is 
as it was at the last. But neither of these ways con- 
cerns me in particular, — but if it should in a middle 
region go to lawyers, then I beseech your Lordship have 
some care of me. The attorney and solicitor are as 
the King's champions for civil business, and they had 
need have some place of rest in their eye for their en- 
couragement. The Mastership of the Bolls, which was 
the ordinary place kept for them, is gone from them. 

18. Bacon to Carr, Nov. 14, 1612, S. P. 0.; Lake to Carleton Nov. 19, 1612, 
Venetian MSS., S. P. 0. 



he is constantly consulted or employed in the most 
weighty, the most delicate business of the Crown. 
Most conspicuous, perhaps, of the cases which now en- 
gage his mind is the old, old story of Irish broils. 

Of Ireland itself he never speaks but in words of 
tenderness and grief. With him the green, lustrous 
island is "a country blessed with almost all the dowries 
of nature, — with rivers, havens, woods, quarries, good 
soil, temperate climate, and a race and generation of 
men, valiant, hard, and active, as it is not easy to find 
such confluence of commodities, if the hand of man 
did join with the hand of nature ; but they severed, — 

19. Bacon to Carr, Nov. 14, 1612, S. P. 0. 



1612. 

Nov. 



FAILURE OF HIS SUIT. 207 

If this place should go to a lawyer, and not to them, VIII. 18. 
their hopes must diminish. Thus I rest, your Lord- 
ship's affectionate, to do you humble service, 

F. Bacon. 

He feels so certain of this suit that he orders the 
new clothes for his servants ; yet the suit fails. He 
wants the Court of Wards and Liveries as a right, and 
will not buy it. Sir Walter Cope, a man of larger 
fortunes and smaller scruples, while Bacon alleges ser- 
vice, tells down his money and buys the place. The 
wags of the Mitre have their laugh. " Sir Walter," 
they say, " has got the Wards, Sir Francis the Liv- 



19. If he sue without success for the Court of Wards, 1613. 



Aug. 



208 FRANCIS BACON. 

VIII. 19. the harp of Ireland is not strung or attuned to con- 
cord." More the pity, thinks its generous and sagacious 
friend ! 



1613. 

Aug. 



20. Sir Arthur Chichester, the wisest, firmest man 
ever sent from England to rule the Celt, — after driv- 
ing out the rebels O'Neile and O'Donnel, crushing 
O'Dogherty and the assassins who ravished and de- 
stroyed Derry, — has built a new city on Lough Foyle, 
garrisoned and calmed Strabane, Bally shannon, Omagh, 
and the forts along the lines from Kerry to Inishoan, 
and peopled with the germs of a new race the wastes 
of Antrim and Down, of Londonderry and Coleraine. 
Strong in his genius and in his success, after founding 
an English state in Ulster on the ruins of the great 
Celtic insurrection, he calls a Parliament in Dublin to 
sanction what has been done, and to resume, for the 
first time in the remembrance of living men, a regular 
mode of civil and popular government. For seven years 
he has ruled by the sword. He wishes to lay it down. 
But blood is hot and feuds run high. The Saxon and 
the Celt, the Protestant and the Papist, meet in Dublin, 
less disposed to sit on the same benches and hear each 
other prate than to pluck out the sharp skean and fly 
at each other's throats. At the first meeting they fall 
to blows. One party says Sir John Everard shall be 



20. An Account of the Right Hon. Sir Arthur Chichester, Lord Belfast, Lord 
Deputy of Ireland ; by Sir Faithful Fortescue : with Notes and a Memoir of the 
Writer by Lord Clermont^ 1858. Ellis's Orig. Letters, Third Series, iv. 173. 



CHICHESTEE'S IEISH GOVERNMENT. 209 

Speaker ; the other, Sir John Davis. Everard is in VIII. 20. 
opposition, Davis the Irish Attorney-General ; Everard 
the candidate of the monks, Davis of the Crown. Chi- Aug 
Chester can but follow the Imperial law. Usage good 
in Westminster mnst be held good in Dublin. Davis 
must be Speaker. Indeed, the majority elect him. But 
a crowd of men, summoned from the Bog of Allen, 
from the banks of Lough Swilly, from the wilds of 
Sligo and Mayo, — representatives of the MacOiraghtys 
and MacCoghlans, of the O'Doghertys, O'Donnels, and 
O'Concannons, — who have scarcely ever heard of a pre- 
cedent, have not learned to respect a majority of votes. 
When the Protestants file into the right lobby, instead 
of filing into the left the Homan Catholic members seat 
Everard in the chair. They refuse to move or to be 
counted like a drove of sheep ! Davis, voted into the 
chair by a majority of twenty-eight, is taken up to his 
seat by two members, as in the English House of Com- 
mons. Everard will not stir. Davis plumps into his 
lap. In a wild Irish uproar, Everard, caught by the 
crowd, is thrust out neck and crop. The Celtic mem- 
bers grasp their skeans. If Chichester, wise in time, 
had not prudently set them in a ring of steel, the mem- 
bers, instead of hearing each other's grievances, would 
have cut each other's throats. Such a House of Com- 
mons is an impracticable instrument for preserving the 
peace of Ireland, and Chichester dissolves it. On the 
evening of the row, to show his scorn of such brab- 
bles, the Lord Deputy goes out to play his usual rubber. 



1613. 

Aug 13. 



210 FRANCIS BACON. 

VIII. 21. 21. Everard and his friends come over to complain at 
Whitehall. They talk of their wrongs. They object 
to the new boroughs planted by the English.; they re- 
quire that these boroughs shall not be allowed to send 
representatives to an Irish House of Commons ! They 
whine of danger to their persons, of a Gunpowder Plot 
to blow them into the sky. 

The King consults Bacon. Anxious for Parliaments, 
but aware that Parliaments presuppose habits of order 
and discussion, respect for opinion, submission to majori- 
ties, Bacon gives the King this advice : — 

Bacon to James. 

Aug. 13, 1613. 

May it please your most excellent Majesty, — 
I was at my house in the country what time the com- 
mission and instructions for Ireland were drawn by Mr. 
Attorney, but I was present this day the forenoon, when 
they were read before my Lords and excepted to, some 
points whereof use was made, and some alterations fol- 
lowed, but I could not in decency except to as much as 
I thought there might be cause, lest it might be thought 
a humor of contradiction or an effect of emulation, 
which, I thank God, I am not much troubled with, for, 
so your Majesty's business be well done, whosoever be the 
instrument, I rest joyful. But because this is a tender 
piece of service, and that which was well directed by 

21. Abbot, Aug. 4, 1613, S. P. 0.; Add. MSS. 19, 402, fol. 87. 



ADVICE CONCEENING IKELAND. 211 

your Majesty's high wisdom may be marred in the man- VIII 21. 
age, and that I have been so happy as to have my poor 
service in this business of Ireland, which I have mind- Aug 13 
ed with all my powers, because I thought your estate 
labored, graciously accepted by your sacred Majesty, I 
do presume to present to your Majesty's remembrance 
(whom I perceive to be one of the most truly politic 
princes that ever reigned, and the greatest height of 
my poor abilities is but to understand you well) some 
few points in a memorial enclosed which I wish to be 
changed. They tend to this scope principally, that I 
think it safest for your Majesty at this time, hoc agere, 
which is to effect that you may hold a parliament in Ire- 
land with sovereignty, concord, contentment, and mod- 
erate freedom, and so bind up the wound made without 
clogging the commission with too many other matters . . . 
whereas these instruments are are so marshalled as if the 
grievances were the principal. The grievances which 
were not commended to these messengers from the party 
in Ireland, but slept at least a month after their coming 
hither, and . . . are divers of them of so vulgar a nature 
as they are complained of both in England and Ireland, 
and both now and at all times. For your Majesty to give 
way upon this ground, to so particular an inquiry of all 
these points, I confess I think is unworthy of majesty, for 
they are set down like interrogatories in a suit in law. 
And my fear is they will call up and stir such a number 
of complaints and petitions, which not being possible to 
be satisfied, this commission, meant for satisfaction, will 



212 FRANCIS BACON. 

VIII. 21. end in murmur. But these things which I write are per- 
haps but my errors and simplicities. Your Majesty's 

Aug. 13. wisdom must steer and ballast the ship. So most hum- 
bly craving pardon, I ever rest your Majesty's most de- 
voted and faithful subject and servant, 

Fr. Bacon. 

Government acts on this counsel of maintaining in 
Dublin a firm and inflexible justice. A Parliament meets 
within twelve months, the members of which quarrel 
indeed among themselves, as is only national and natu- 
ral ; but which proves itself as capable of transacting 
public business as almost any Parliament in Palace Yard. 
It gives peace to Ireland for thirty years. 

For nearly all that is most gracious and noble, most 
wise and foreseeing in the Irish policy of the Crown in 
this reign, thanks are due, next after Arthur Chichester, 
to Francis Bacon. Yet Lord Campbell, a statesman and 
a lawyer, has not one word on this theme ! 

Oct 24. 22. Two years of fag and moil cure James of his am- 
bition to be thought the best scribe in Christendom. 
Dissolving the commission of the Treasury, he gives the 
Staff to Northampton. He brings Winwood forward as 
Secretary of State ; but ere passing his commission under 
the Seal, James raises his great competitor for that post 
a step in his profession ; Coke going up to the King's 

22. Chamberlain to Carleton, Oct. 14, 27, 1614, S. P. 0.; Grant Book, 102; 
Bacon's Apophthegms in Resuscitatio, 88. 



MADE ATTORNEY-GENEKAL. 213 

Bench, Hobart to the Common Pleas, and Bacon to the VHL32. 
Attorney's place. Coke huffs at the King's Bench, a 
court of higher dignity than the Common Pleas, but of 0ct 27 
fewer fees. James has to interfere. " This is all your 
doing, Mr. Attorney," says the irascible Lord Chief 
Justice ; "it is you that have made this great stir." 
With the light laugh that has so often maddened Coke, 
he answers, " Your Lordship all this while hath grown 
in breadth ; you must needs now grow in height, or you 
will be a monster." 

23. Lord Campbell sees in these promotions, not the Nov. 
natural changes brought about by time, such as every 
year occur at the bar, but a mean trick, a court intrigue, 
an affair of secret letters, of back-stairs interest, in short, 
a dodge and a cheat ! To this reading of events may be 
opposed the judgments of those among Bacon's contem- 
poraries who know him best, the electors of the University 
of Cambridge, the members of the House of Commons. 
Their judgments, happily for us, are given in a very 
conspicuous and decisive way. 

Bacon's first advice to the Crown in his new office is to 
abandon its irregular, unproductive methods of raising 
funds, inventions of the Meercrafts and Overreaches of 



23. Mem. of Burgesses chosen for more than one place, April, 1614, S. P. 0. 
Bacon's biographers have been misled about his seat in 1614 by an erroneous 
conjecture of Willis (Not. Pari., hi. 173). There is a list of the Parliament of 
1614 among the valuable MSS. at Kimbolton Castle, for which, as for many 
other courtesies, I am indebted to the obliging friendship of his Grace the Duke 
of Manchester. 



214 FRANCIS BACON. 

VIII. 23. the court ; to call a new Parliament to Westminster, to 
explain frankly the political situation, and to trust the 
March na tion for supplies. The advice, though hotly opposed 
by Northampton and the whole gang of Spanish pension- 
ers, men paid to provoke hostility between the Commons 
and the Crown, so far prevails that writs go down into 
the country. For thirteen years Bacon has represented 
Ipswich in the House of Commons. Ipswich clings to 
him with the love of a bride. But Cambridge, a more 
splendid and gracious constituency, claims him for its 
own. In the ambition of a public man there is nothing 
more pure than the wish to represent in Parliament the 
University at which he has been trained ; nor is there 
for the scholar and the writer any reward more lofty 
than the confidence implied in the votes of a great con- 
stituency of scholars and gentlemen. In Bacon's case 
there are peculiar obstacles. He left Cambridge early 
and in disdain ; he has kept no friendly intercourse with 
its dons ; the business of his intellectual life has been to 
destroy the grounds on which its system of instruction 
stands. Yet the members of the University feel that as 
a writer and a philosopher he is not only the most bril- 
liant Cambridge man alive, but the most brilliant Eng- 
lishman who ever lived. They elect him. 

The burgesses of Ipswich also elect him. The bur- 
gesses of St. Albans also elect him. Such a return is 
unprecedented in parliamentary annals. Only the most 
popular and patriotic candidates are rewarded in this 
Parliament by double returns. Sandes is elected for 



1614. 

March. 



TKIPLE RETURN TO PARLIAMENT. 215 

Hendon and Rochester, Whitelocke for Woodstock and VIII. 23. 
Corffe Castle. No one save the new Attorney-General 
can boast of a triple return. 

Of course he sits for Cambridge ; a fact, overlooked by 
his biographers, from Rawley to Lord Campbell, which 
connects his fame in a gentle and gracious form with 
the political history of Cambridge. 

24. Nor is this gracious confidence of his University April, 
the most striking proof of popularity which he now re- 
ceives. When the Houses meet in April, a whisper 
buzzes round the benches that the elections for Cam- 
bridge, Ipswich, and St. Albans are null and void. No 
man holding the office of Attorney-General has ever been 
elected to serve in Parliament, and some of the members 
seem resolved that so powerful an officer of the Crown 
never ought to sit, and never shall sit, in that House. 
The Attorney-General is the Crown trier ; he sets the law 
in motion ; he gathers the evidence, weighs the words, 
sifts the facts for prosecution. Unless scrupulous beyond 
the virtue of man, such an officer, hearing everything, 
noting everything, forgetting nothing, may become, in a 
House of Commons bent on free speech as its sacred 
right, the worst of inquisitors and tyrants. He shall not 
sit. Yet, notwithstanding their jealousy of power, the 
representative gentlemen of England have no heart to 
put the wisest and best among them to the door. They 

24. Chamberlain to Caiieton, April 14, 1614, S. P. 0.; Com. Jour., i. 456; 
Statutes of the Realm, iv. 1207. 



216 FRANCIS BACON. 

VIII. 24. seek for precedents, that he may sit. No case is on the 
rolls. An Attorney-General, chosen after his nomination, 
April. canilot sit by precedent. What then ? They waive their 
right. They take him as he is. Crown lawyer or not 
Crown lawyer, he is Sir Francis Bacon. As Sir Francis 
Bacon he shall sit. But the case shall stand alone. This 
tribute paid to personal merit and public service must 
not be drawn, say the applauding members, into a pre- 
cedent dangerous to their franchise. He is the first to 
sit, he must be the last. 

That an exception in favor of the new Attorney-Gen- 
eral should have been made by men so hostile to the 
court that they broke up at last without passing a single 
bill which the Crown could assent to, is most strange. 
The results are yet more strange. As if to witness to 
the latest generations the profound estimation in which 
Bacon was held by a House of Commons which had 
known him closely for thirty years, and which had seen 
him vote and act under every form of temptation that 
can test the virtue and tax the genius of a public man, 
this exception, made in his favor solely, became the rule 
for his successors and for succeeding times. Once only 
has the restriction been referred to in the House. That 
was in the case of his immediate successor. Since his 
time the presence of the Attorney-General among the 
representatives of the people has been constant. This 
fact suggests not only that a change has taken place in 
public thought, but that the character of the Crown 
official has undergone a change. Such is the truth. 



TRIPLE RETURN TO PARLIAMENT. 217 

Before Bacon's day the Attorney-General was the per- VIII. 24. 
sonal servant of the prince: from Bacon's day he has 
been the servant of the State. Bacon was the first of 
a new order of public men. The fact is scarcely less 
creditable to his political purity than the composition 
of the Novum Organum is glorious to his intellectual 
powers. Bad men kill great offices. Good men found 
them. 



1614. 

April. 



10 



218 FRANCIS BACON. 



1614. 
Oct. 11 



CHAPTER IX. 



ST. JOHN AND PEACHAM 



IX. 1. 1. If Lord Campbell has not one word to say on 
Bacon's part in the plantation of Virginia, in the regen- 
eration of Ulster, he has room for page after page of 
statement, more or less false in fact, wholly false in spirit, 
on the examination into the contempt of Oliver St. John, 
and on the trial for libel of Edmond Peacham. 

Happy the great lawyer who in passionate times can 
give up office with no worse recollection on his soul than 
having conducted two such cases for the Crown ! 

2. First of Oliver St. John. In the session of 1614, 
as in every session when he was out of office, Bacon puts 
his strength to the supplies. The day which he has so 
long feared has come ; the Papal powers, united over the 
corpse of Henri Quatre, have formed their league ; Spi- 
nola's Pandours and Walloons are crushing out the free, 
industrial, and religious life of the Lower Rhine. A 
dozen cities lift their hands for help. Battalions clash 
down the passes of the Alps and the Pyrenees, armadas 

1. Campbell, Life of Bacon, iii. 62-66. 

2. St. John to Mayor of Marlborough, Oct. 11, 1614, S. P. 0. 



THE PAPAL LEAGUE. 219 

ride in the roads of Sicily and in the bays of Spain. The IX. 2. 
English fleet is rotting in port. Only ten or twelve ships 
are in commission ; four in the Thames or the Downs, 0cfc 11 
one or two at Portsmouth and Plymouth, four in the 
Irish seas. The Crown is deep in debt. To a man not 
mad with jealousy of power such a political situation 
must be intolerable, and it is intolerable to Bacon. But 
the Puritans are deaf. They fear the King even more 
than the Roman League. They will not give. Unable 
to procure grants from Parliament, James tries to raise 
money by a benevolence ; when the lords, the bishops, and 
archbishops, come to his aid, bringing cups, rings, and 
golden angels into the Jewel House of the Tower. All 
mayors of towns are ordered to receive such gifts as may 
be offered. No rate is laid ; no one is forced to give ; at 
least, so say the officers of the Crown. In loyal shires 
persuasion may be used to swell the lists ; but where the 
magistrates are not loyal, the benevolence flags. Many 
of the Puritans, all the Papists, close their hands ; those 
distrusting the court ; these wishing well to the foe. The 
benevolence fares best in the Protestant shires; worst 
in the Catholic shires. Kent, Surrey, Middlesex, Herts, 
Berks, Essex, and Norfolk yield an army of subscribers. 
Sussex sends up only three ; Durham, Cumberland, West- 
moreland, not one. Now, it is clear that those who op- 
pose a Parliamentary vote may fairly decline to make a 
free gift. But Oliver St. John, Black Oliver his contem- 
poraries call him, from his bilious temper and dark com- 
plexion, is not content merely to decline. A man of a 



1614. 

Oct. 11 



220 FRANCIS BACON. 

IX. 2. stormy and yet slavish spirit, he must denounce this 
measure of the government by voice and pen. He will 
not let the people give. In a public letter to the Mayor 
of Marlborough he declares that the King, in asking his 
people for a free gift of money, is violating his oath, com- 
mitting a perjury more gross than that for which more 
than one English monarch has lost his crown! 

Dec. 3. It is impossible for the Privy Council to overlook 

such a contempt. The lawfulness of a Benevolence may 
be open to debate ; no true Englishman can doubt that 
St. John's letter is in the highest degree scandalous to 
the King, and in the highest degree injurious to the na- 
tional force. Lord Campbell (who confounds this Oliver 
St. John with the famous Lord Chief Justice of the Com- 
monwealth, now a boy of sixteen !) appears to regard St. 
John as an earlier Hampden. A closer reading of the 
time would show that he was one of those loud and lying 
politicians who are the disgrace of every cause. Instead 
of being the Hampden, Black Oliver was the O'Brien or 
the O'Connor of his time ; though he had neither Smith 
O'Brien's abilities nor Feargus O'Connor's dash. When 
the Marlborough bully is cited into the Star Chamber, 
Coke condemns him to five thousand pounds fine and 
imprisonment for life. Yet even the Tower, which so 
often elevates a fool into a martyr, fails to make St. John 



3. Council Reg., Nov. 19, 25, Dec. 4, 9, 1614, Feb. 3, May 31, 1615; Chamber- 
lain to Carleton, Jan. 5, Feb. 9, 1615, S. P. 0.; Council to James, Feb. 8, 1615, 
S. P. 0.; Add. MSS. 19,402. 



1614. 

Dec. 



CASE OF OLIVEK ST. JOHN. 221 

appear, even to the undiscerning mob, either a wise or a IX. 3 
brave man. When the gate of his cell creaks on its hinge 
he begins to whine and cry. He repents his sally, recants 
his words. He goes on his knees, he pledges his future 
fame. He begs, fawns, groans to be let out. Even those 
who make an idol of every one barred in the Tower turn 
from this pusillanimous and crouching prisoner in disgust. 

4. One of St. John's letters to the King is so amaz- 
ingly abject as to constitute a curiosity in literature. 
In England we are not used to such a style of prison 
supplication, for the men who go wrong generally have 
the merit of going wrong in good faith, and when 
called to the martyr's crown wear it as a crown. It 
may be well to give a passage from this document (now 
for the first time printed), that the world may note, 
under his own seal, what kind of hero this Oliver St. 
John is, whom Lord Campbell mistakes for the great 
Chief Justice ! 

Oliver St. John to the King. 

Most High and Mighty King, my alone virtually and 
rightfully dread Lord and Sovereign (after God my 
Maker and my Saviour Jesus Christ), my hearty chief 
joy, love, slave, and delight ! 

In all humbleness of soul and spirit showeth unto 
your sacred Majesty your poor distressed subject and 

4. Add. MSS. 19, 402, fol. 62. 



1614. 
Dec. 



222 FRANCIS BACON. 

faithful servant, sometimes long close prisoner in the 
Tower of London ; that whereas it graciously pleased 
your said Majesty, on humble submission and petition to 
consider and commiserate the lamentable condition of 
the poor petitioner, censured in the Star Chamber for 
a letter written to the Mayor of Marlborough in Octo- 
ber 1614, and therewith showed your princely and 
Royal heart so moved to mercy, that as the then Lord 
Chancellor said you had out of admirable and more 
than kingly benignity and bounty so remitted the same 
that I had not any more to starve, although my fine, 
together with my submission, remained on record. . . . 
. . But my great and brain-sick offence against your 
Most Excellent Majesty, my right dear Sovereign (for 
which phrase at your Highness's feet my broken heart 
again and again most humbly and instantly asketh 
your most gracious pardon), forbidding me your awful 

presence on my bended knees, in all humility 

of heart and spirit, [I] beseech your great, imperial, and 
sacred Majesty, first gracious remission and pardon, both 
of the fault and pain, as also, most gracious King and 
my dearest liege lord, that you will further be graciously 
pleased to show your most admirable goodness and 
mercy (if it may stand with due order of state policy) 
in commanding a removal or deleator of the whole rec- 
ord thereof; that so great an ignominy remain not on 
the name of him who, having been now received your 
Majesty's sworn servant, is still resolved ever to re- 
ceive therein that fatal arrow in his breast (with loyal 



CASE OF OLIVER ST. JOHN. 223 

Hugo de St. Clara) than once admit into his heart the IX. 4. 
least disloyal thought against your sacred person, dig- 

1614. 

nity, or fame ; the very least of us whoso shall seek Dec< 
to impeach, let God from Heaven shoot sharp arrows 
into his heart, that all the King's enemies may fall 
before him. So prayeth, from his inmost heart, 
Your Majesty's humble, faithful, and 
obedient vassal, 

Oliver St. John. 

5. Lord Campbell, who brands the conduct of Bacon 
in officially aiding to silence this impudent and whining 
demagogue, is more than usually infelicitous in the 
grounds of his charge. He says that Bacon in his 
speech against Oliver St. John strenuously defends the 
raising of money by benevolences. Now, he does no 
such thing. He never once touches the law of these 
free gifts. He proves, and proves most clearly, that the 
particular benevolence denounced by St. John to the 
Mayor of Marlborough as a violation of the King's oath, 
has no character of a forced loan. The question tried, 
if one may say so to a nobleman who has been a Lord 
Chief Justice and is now a Lord Chancellor, was not 
one of law, but one of fact, — not whether a benevo- 
lence was, in the reign of James the First, legal, but 
whether St. John had been guilty of a grievous con- 
tempt in publishing his letter to the Mayor. The trial 
of John Bates for refusing to pay the taxes levied by 

5. State Trials, ii. 899. 



1614. 
Dec. 



224 FKANCIS BACON. 

IX. 5. the Book of Rates was a trial of law ; the trial of Oliver 
St. John for calling the King forsworn was a trial of 
fact. St. John was condemned, not for refusing to sub- 
scribe his money, but for publishing a letter in contempt 
of the Crown. 

6. Pass to the case of Peacham, — a case which Lord 
Campbell has taken less pains to understand than even 
that of St. John. " Fine and imprisonment," he writes, 
" having no effect in quelling the rising murmurs of the 
people, it was resolved to make a more dreadful example, 
and Peacham, a clergyman of Somersetshire, between 
sixty and seventy years of age, was selected for the vic- 
tim. On breaking into his study, a sermon was there 
found, which he had never preached, nor intended to 
preach, nor shown to any human being, but which con- 
tained some passages encouraging the people to resist 
tyranny. He was immediately arrested, and a resolu- 
tion was taken to prosecute him for high treason. But 
Mr. Attorney, who is alone responsible for this atrocious 
conduct, anticipated considerable difficulties both in law 
and in fact before the poor old parson could be subjected 
to a cruel and almost ignominious death." 

In every line of this passage there is error ; indeed, 
the whole passage is an error. No murmurs arose in 
the country on account of St. John. No one at court 
ever dreamt of making Peacham a victim, for no one 
out of Somersetshire had ever heard his name. His 

6. I'cacham's Examination, Aug. 31, 1615, S. P. 0. 



1614. 

Dec. 



CASE OF EDMOND PEACHAM. 225 

study was not broken into for the purpose of finding IX. 6 
treason in it. It was not a sermon that had been found. 
It is ridiculous to say that the papers seized in his desk 
were not intended to be shown to any human being, for 
they had been written for publication and had in truth 
been shown to several persons. Peacham was not ar- 
rested immediately on the seizure of his papers ; he was 
already in custody for offences less dubious than a polit- 
ical crime. Mr. Attorney was not alone responsible for 
his prosecution. He was not at all responsible. The 
prosecution was ordered by the Privy Council, of which 
he was not a member. It was conducted by Winwood, 
the Puritan Secretary of State. 

7. Not much has been left to us by the writers about 
Edmond Peacham ; yet evidence remains in the books 
at Wells, and in the records of Her Majesty's State 
Paper Office, to prove that he was one of the most des- 
picable wretches who ever brought shame and trouble 
on the Church. It is there seen that he was a libeller. 
It is there seen that he was a liar. It is there seen that 
he was a marvel of turbulence and ingratitude ; not 
alone a seditious subject, but a scandalous minister and 
a perfidious friend. It is in evidence that he outraged 

7. Sentence of Deprivation against Peacham, Dec. 19, 1614, S. P. 0. ; Pre- 
sentation Books at Wells. I am indebted for many particulars respecting 
Peacham to the friendly inquiries made for me by Lord Auckland, Bishop of 
Bath and Wells. A brief inspection of the papers preserved in the old gate- 
tower at Wells convinces me of their very great value for ecclesiastical and 
family history. 

10* o 



FRANCIS BACON. 



IX. 7. his bishop by a scandalous personal libel ; and that he 
did his worst to get the patron to whom he owed his 
living hung. 



1614. 

Dec. 



8. Hallam tells us how hard it is for him to see any 
way in which this poor parson, in a wild part of the 
west country, far from a large town, could have fallen 
into the clutches of the law. The reader of Hallam 
will be glad to find that Peacham fell into grief, not 
on account of his politics, but for an unbearable ecclesi- 
astical offence. 

For several years Peacham had been rector of Hin- 
ton St. George, a parish in the wildest part of Somerset- 
shire, and in the diocese of Bath and Wells. James 
Montagu, Dean of the Chapel, was bishop. The lord 
of the manor and patron of the living of Hinton St. 
George was John Paulett, grandson of Bacon's old 
friend and guardian, Sir Amias Paulett, and founder 
of the noble line of that name and place. Margery, a 
sister of this John, married Sir John Sydenham of 
Combe, one of his political friends. Paulett repre- 
sented the county in Parliament, in which he distin- 
guished himself by a firm, yet far from disloyal opposi- 
tion to the court. 

The papers at Wells still prove that Peacham had 
been very troublesome to the Church. There had been 
irregularities in his institution. There had been libels 

8. Wells MSS.; Collins's Peerage, art. Pawlett; Council Reg., Dec. 9, 16, 
1614. 



CASE OF EDMOND PEACHAM. 227 

and accusations in the Bishop's Court. At length, there IX.' 8. 
came from Hinton St. George a foul and malignant libel 
against the bishop himself ; when Montagu appealed to Dec ' 
his primate, and Archbishop Abbott cited the offender 
to appear before him at Lambeth and purge his fame. 
His character and his cause appeared so bad that, on 
his arrival in town, Abbott lodged him in the Gatehouse, 
among the herd of recusants, monks, and priests. 

9. Many a Puritan preacher, silenced for a word on Dec.i9. 
copes and stoles, on the closed book or the unlit candle, 
must have envied this libeller such a hearing as the 
Church condescends to grant him. Ten commissioners, 
one of them an archbishop, four of them bishops, meet 
to try his case. If Abbott and King lean to Puritan 
views, Andrews and Neile incline towards Rome. In 
such a tribunal there is sure to be sympathy for any 
excess of zeal. Yet these four men, as well as the other 
six, condemn him. Ecclesiastics who differ from each 
other on every point of doctrine and discipline agree to 
find Peacham guilty of composing, writing, or causing 
to be written, a defamatory libel against his ordinary, 
contrary to his canonical obedience and reverence and 
to the virtue of his oath, and of writing, or causing to 
be written, a scandalous libel against the laws, statutes, 
and customs of the Church and the ecclesiastical juris- 
diction, defaming the clerical order and the national 
rite. By a solemn act they cast him from the Church. 

9. Sentence of Deprivation against Edmond Peacham, Dec. 19, 1614, S. P. 0. 



1615. 

Jan. 



228 FRANCIS BACON. 

IX. 10. 10. Among the papers seized in his house at Hinton 
St. George, and brought up with him to London, is a 
mass of political writings scrawled on loose sheets, sewn 
together so as to make a book. Glancing through these 
sheets, the commissioners find them stuffed with defam- 
atory attacks on the Court, the Government, the Prince 
of Wales, and the King, so sharp and savage that they 
must have been either meant for the signal of a rising 
or have been composed by a man drunk or mad. The 
King is charged with falsehood, his ministers with fraud. 
Peacham treats the King with no more reverence than 
his bishop. He has felt himself moved to say that 
James might be smitten of a sudden, in a week, like 
Ananias and Nabal ; that the Prince will want to take 
back the Crown-lands sold by his father, when men will 
rise up against him, saying, — This is the heir, let us 
kill him. He has declared the King's officers so vile 
that they should be set upon and put to the sword ; the 
King himself a creature not alone unfit to reign, but 
unworthy to bear the name of Christian or of man, — 
a thing too abject to crawl on earth or be redeemed 
in heaven. 

These passages are not only meant for the public 
eye, but are ready for the press. 

11. Winwood, who, if not a Puritan, is a protector 



10. The true State of the Question whether Peacham's Case be Treason, 
State Trials, ii. 878. 

11. Council Reg., Nov. 2, Dec. 9, 1614, Feb. 25, 26, 1615. 



CASE OF EDMOND PEACHAM. 229 

of the Puritans, by whose help he holds his place at IX. 11. 
court, sees no cause in this depraved and convicted man's 
religion to stay his hand. If Peacham is a Puritan, Jan ' 
the lay chief of the body does not seem to know it. 
Winwood puts him under question ; when the vicious 
old sinner falls into deeper and more odious sin. From 
either demoniacal spite at his recent loss, or from utter 
callousness of heart, he accuses John Paulett, the pa- 
tron to whom he owes his living in the Church, of a 
treasonable knowledge of the contents of his book. 
And not only John Paulett, but his sister's husband, 
Sir John Sydenham, whom he charges, not alone with 
criminal silence, but with a positive share in the com- 
position. Nor do the wretch's lies end here. Among 
the most intimate friends of Paulett is Sir Maurice 
Berkeley, a politician and a reformer, who plays a 
conspicuous part in London life, and who divides with 
him the representation of the shire ; him also Peach- 
am charges as a confederate. Winwood gets alarmed. 
A sedition of which Paulett, Berkeley, and Sydenham 
are the accomplices may be fraught with peril. He 
sends Peacham to the Tower, brings Paulett and Berke- 
ley before the Privy Council, and calls up Sydenham 
from Combe. 

12. All three gentlemen scout with indignation this 
abominable lie. Paulett and Berkeley say they have 
never heard one word of the scandalous and seditious 

12. Council Reg., Jan. 18, 1615. 



230 FRANCIS BACON. 

IX. 12. book ; Sydenham says he never wrote a line of it. And 
they tell the truth. If they speak against the Crown on 
Jan. questions of prerogative and grievances, they say what 
they have to say in the House of Commons. If they 
are hostile to the court, these men are neither libellers 
nor traitors. 

Where lies the truth ? 

Here are the seditious libels against the Crown, of 
which Peacham asserts that he shares the authorship 
with Sydenham and the privity with Paulett and Berke- 
ley. How is Winwood to probe the mystery ? The law 
has but one course. Peacham must be interrogated as 
Fawkes was interrogated. 
Jan. is. The Crown sends down a commission to the Tower, 
consisting of Winwood, Secretary of State ; Cesar, Mas- 
ter of the Rolls ; Bacon, Attorney-General ; Yelverton, 
Solicitor-General ; Montagu, Recorder of London ; Ser- 
geant Crew ; and Helwys, Lieutenant of the Tower, to 
put him to the question. An extract from the Council 
Register will show the order under which they act: — 



The Council to Winwood, Master of the Rolls, 
Lieut, of Tower, and others. 

" After our hearty commendations. Whereas Edmond 
Peacham, now prisoner in the Tower, stands charged 
with the writing of a book or pamphlet containing mat- 
ters treasonable (as is conceived), and being examined 
thereupon refuseth to declare the truth in those points 



GENERAL USE OF TORTURE. 231 

whereof he hath been interrogated. For so much as the IX. 12. 
same doth concern his Majesty's sacred person and gov- 
ernment, and doth highly concern his service-, to have Jan#18i 
many things yet discovered touching the said book and 
the author thereof, wherein Peacham dealeth not so 
clearly as becometh an honest and loyal subject. These 
shall be therefore in his Majesty's name to will and re- 
quire you and every of you to repair with what conven- 
ient diligence you may unto the Tower, and there to call 
before you the said Peacham, and to examine him strictly 
upon such interrogatories concerning the said book as 
you shall think fit and necessary for the manifestation of 
truth ; and if you find him obstinate and perverse, and 
not otherwise willing or ready to tell the truth, then to 
put him to the L?anacles as in your discretion you shall 
see occasion ; for which this shall be to you and every 
of you sufficient warrant." 

13. That these instructions were obeyed by the com- 
missioners there is no room to doubt. A man of gentle 
heart may regret that commands so savage and so fu- 
tile should proceed from the English Crown ; but while 
grieving that our ancestors were either less wise or less 
compassionate than ourselves, no candid mind will con- 
sent to assess the fault of an entire generation on the 
character of a single man. A belief that truth must be 
sought by help of the cord, the maiden, and the wheel, 
was in the opening years of the seventeenth century uni- 

13. Dom. Papers James the First, lxxx. 6, 26, 38. 



232 FRANCIS BACON. 

IX. 13. versal. It had come down with the codes and usages of 
antiquity, sustained by the practice of every people on 
Jan ' the civilized globe ; most of all by the practice of those 
wealthy and illustrious communities which had kept most 
pure the traditions of Imperial Roman law. Men who 
agreed in nothing else, agreed in seeking truth through 
pain. Nations which fought each other to the knife over 
definitions of grace, election, and transubstantiation, had 
a common faith in the possibility of discovering truth by 
the rack, the pincers, and the screw. There were torture- 
chambers at Osnaburgh and Ratisbon, no less hideous 
Feb. than those of Valladolid and Rome. The same hot bars, 
the same boots, the same racks, were found in the Piombi 
and the Bastile, in the Bargello and the Tower. Nor 
was the Church one whit more gentle or enlightened than 
the civil power. Cardinals searched out heresy in the 
flames of the Quemadero, as the Council of Ten tracked 
treason in the waves of the Lagune. Bacon was not 
more responsible for the universal practice than for the 
particular act. To have set himself against the spirit of 
his time he must have mounted St. Simeon Stylites's col- 
umn, or shrunk into St. Anthony's cave. If he chose to 
live among men, he must discharge the duties of a man. 
There lies a deep gulf between acts of duty and acts of 
the will. One who from morbid mind, or from love of 
pain, must follow the death-cart to Tyburn, is not per- 
forming a noble or necessary deed ; yet the chaplain who 
has to rceite the prayer, the sheriff who has to signal the 
drop, go free from blame. So in truth with Bacon. If 



GENERAL USE OF TORTURE. 233 

he were present at the question of Peacham, he was IX. 13. 
there as one of a commission acting under special com- 
mands from the Privy Council. It is silly to say he was Feb- 
responsible for what was done. He was not chief of the 
commissioners. He was not even a member of the high 
body in whose name they spoke. His official superiors, 
Winwood and Cesar, were on the spot. Does Lord 
Campbell think the Attorney-General should have de- 
clined to act with them, thrown up his commission, and 
refused to obey the Crown ? 

14. Bear in mind the age in which he lived. The 
cry of pain, the gasp of death, were no such shocks to 
the gentle heart as they would be in a softer time. Men 
had been hardened in the Smithfield fires. Minds were 
infected by the atrocities of Papist plots. The ballads 
sung in the streets were steeped in blood, and the plays 
which best drew audiences to the Globe theatre were 
those in which fewest of the characters were left alive. 
Hamlet, Pericles, Titus Andronicus, were the Shake- 
sperian favorites. No man is known to have felt any 
sickness of the heart in presence of judicial torture. 
Egerton often saw men on the rack. Winwood stood 
by while Peacham, under torture, told his tale. James 
was present when Fawkes was stretched. A feeling, it 
is true, was beginning to quicken in society against this 
use of the rack. Both Coke and Bacon disapproved its 
use ; but this merciful sentiment of a few jurists and 
philosophers was unshared by the multitude of men who 



1615. 

Feb. 



234 FEANCIS BACON. 

IX. 14. made the laws. Until the Crown should see fit to aban- 
don this old plan of seeking truth through crushed feet 
and dislocated joints, the officers of the Crown had no 
choice but to read their commission and execute their 
trust. 

15. This truth is so clear that it ought to need no 
illustration. Take a fact from our own time. More 
than one living judge is supposed to be adverse to trial 
by jury. Yet the judges sit in courts where property 
and life are daily exposed to the mercy of a dozen illog- 
ical and prejudiced men. Are they responsible for the 
wrong done? Again, it is conceivable that a judge might 
feel uneasy on the score of capital punishments. It is 
inconceivable that any judge on the Bench would refuse 
to hang a Palmer or a Rush so long as the law continues 
to declare wilful murder worthy of death. Bacon told 
the King that he misliked the use of torture in judicial 
inquiries. He told him so in this very case of Peacham. 
Further than that expression he could not go. 

Bacon's case in 1860 may possibly become Lord Camp- 
bell's case in 1960. Let the public heart go on soften- 
ing for a hundred years, fast as it has softened from the 
early days of John Howard, and the whole civilized 
world may come by 1960 to regard the strangling of a 
human being, on any pretext whatever, as a monstrous 
crime. "Would such a change of public feeling lay Lord 
Campbell open to the charge of judicial murder? Would 
it be just in a writer of that compassionate age to relate 



POSSIBLE CASE 'OF LOED CAMPBELL. 235 

with " horror " that Lord Campbell prostituted emi~ IX. 15. 

nent parts and sullied an honorable name by sitting for 

. 1615. 

many years in a court of justice where life was taken Feb 

in the name of law, with his own lips delivering man 
after man, and even woman after woman, to be stran- 
gled in presence of a brutal crowd, by a wretch who re- 
ceived his blood-money for every loathsome job ? Would 
it be fair to say that Lord Campbell in his thirst for 
blood took the life of Sarah Chesham, a poor woman 
sentenced to death on circumstantial proof, who pro- 
tested her innocence with the rope round her throat? 
Would it be fair to say that with savage glee he ordered 
Emma Mussett to be strangled on pretence of child- 
murder, even though obliged to confess that the evi- 
dence was full of doubt? Would it be honest in the 
writer of a future century to say that in 1860 Lord 
Campbell stood alone on the bench in his resolute prac- 
tice of hanging women, — while, under such humane 
judges as Crompton and Cresswell, the lives of Celes- 
tina Sommers and Elizabeth Harris, criminals of whose 
guilt no man could doubt, were spared ? We think the 
writer who should say this, or anything like this, in 
1960, would be as unfair to Lord Campbell as Lord 
Campbell has been to Francis Bacon. 

16. How Peacham lies and swears, now accusing Aug. 



16. State Trials, ii. 870 ; Diary of Walter Yonge, 27 ; Chamberlain to 
Carleton, Feb. 9, Mar. 2, Aug. 24, 1615, S. P. 0.; Council Keg., July 12, 
1615. 



1615. 

Aug. 



286 FEANCIS BACON. 

IX. 16. others, and now himself, anon retracting all that he has 
said, denying even his handwriting and his signature, 
one day standing to the charge against Sydenham, next 
day running from it altogether : how he is sent down 
into Somersetshire, the scene of his ignoble ministry, to 
be tried by a jury of men who will interpret his public 
conduct by what they know of his private life ; how he 
is found guilty by the twelve jurors and condemned by 
Sir Lawrence Tanfield and Sir Henry Montagu, two of 
the most able and humane judges on the bench ; how 
his sentence is commuted by the Crown into imprison- 
ment during the King's pleasure ; and how he ulti- 
mately dies in Taunton jail, unpitied by a single friend, 
I need not pause to tell. 

Aug. 3i. 17. After sentence of death has been recorded against 
him, he offers to tell the truth, if the King will only 
spare his life. The written confession, twice signed by 
his hand, which remains in the State Paper Office, tells in 
his own words how he came to utter that lie about Sir 
John Sydenham. A question being put to him : — 

" He answereth that all the said words wherewith he 
charged Sir John Sydenham were first written by himself, 
this examinate, only ; and, afterwards hearing these same 
words delivered unto him by Sir John Sydenham, they 
were, to this examinate, a confirmation of that which he 
had formerly written. And, being further asked how he 

17. Peacham's Examination, Aug. 31, 1615, S. P. 0. 



1615. 
Aug. 31. 



PEACHAM'S ANSWERS. 237 

could so strongly father those words upon Sir John Sy- IX. 17, 
denham, seeing he now confesseth himself to be the 
author, and Sir John Sydenham but only to confirm him 
in them, he answereth that, when he made this answer, 
he understood not that distinction betwixt the author and 
oonfirmer, but that they were both taken for one to his 
understanding. And, being asked as before, what was 
his reason and end in charging Sir John Sydenham, he 
answereth he did it to satisfy his Majesty and the Lords 
with the truth."- 

Being asked his motives and intentions in writing the 
pamphlet : — 

" He answereth that, first, it was compiled without any 
knowledge of evil (?) on his part, either against the King 
or estate ; and, secondly, after good and advised delibera- 
tion, he would have taken out all the venom and poison 
thereof, before ever he would have published the same. 
And, being asked in what manner he would have pub- 
lished it, — either by preaching it, or delivering copies of 
it, or by printing it, — he protesteth that his intent was 
never either to publish, or to give copy, or to print, but 
only in private, for his own study, to reduce it into heads, 
that he might make use thereof for such particulars as he 
out of the text observed, whensoever he should have occa- 
sion to speak of any such matter, when all the evil was 
taken out." 

He pronounces this a true confession ; saying he should 



238 FEANCIS BACON. 

IX. 17. abhor telling a lie to his sovereign, and should think 
himself guilty of his own blood if he kept back anything 
g ' after having been promised his life for revealing the 
truth. 

18. One more charge. Bacon, it has been said, not 
only stands by while the prisoner undergoes examination, 
but, on the King's command, consults the judges as to 
whether this crime of seditious writing amounts to trea- 
son by the law. In the wake of Macaulay, Lord Campbell 
says that a private consultation with the judges was an 
act most scandalous and most unusual. The scandal of 
such proceedings may be matter of opinion ; their fre- 
quency is beyond denial. The Kings of England always 
enjoyed, and constantly exercised, the right of consulting 
their judges on the statutory bearing of political crimes. 
These judges had always been the King's judges ; holding 
their commissions at his pleasure ; bound by their oaths to 
advise him on points of law. Macaulay says there is no 
instance of the Crown privately consulting with the 
bench : " Bacon was not conforming to an usage then 
generally admitted to be proper. He was not even the 
last lingering adherent of an old abuse. It would have 
been sufficiently disgraceful to such a man to be in this 
last situation. Yet this last situation would have been 
honorable, compared with that in which he stood. He 
was guilty of attempting to introduce into the courts of 
law an odious abuse, for which no precedent could be 

18. Macaulay's Essay on Bacon; Campbell's Life of Bacon, iii. 65. 



LEGATE BUENT BY JAMES. 239 

found." Why, the law-books teem with precedents. IX. 18. 

One will serve for a score. It happens, indeed, that 

. . . 1615. 

there is one precedent so strange in its circumstances, _ s 

and so often the subject of legal and historical comment, 
tli at it is amazing how it could have slipped the recollec- 
tion of any lawyer, and most of all a lawyer writing of 
the times of James the First. 

19. Peacham's arrest occurred in 1614. In 1612, Bar- 
tholomew Legate, a poor Arian preacher, of simple nature 
and extreme dogmatic views, was tried by a consistory 
of divines, then sitting at St. Paul's, condemned for ten 
separate heresies, and sentenced to be burnt alive. King, 
Ins ordinary, turned him over to the secular arm. But, 
as an Act of the first year of Elizabeth had repealed the 
Statute of Heresy, leaving errors of faith to the more 
merciful ruling of the common law, a question arose as 
to whether the Crown had power to execute this abom- 
inable sentence of the divines. James thought he had 
full powers. The judges were consulted one by one. 
Abbott instructed Egerton how to act ; and the Lord 
Chancellor conferred in private with his legal brethren, 
Williams, Croke, and Altham being sounded by him or 
by his orders. As they all agreed that James, despite 
the repeal of the Statute of Heresy, had power to burn, 
the King, on their authority, issued his warrant under 
the sign manual to Egerton, Egerton sent his writ to 

19. Chamberlain to Carleton, Feb. 26, Mar. 25, 1612, S. P. 0. ; Sign Manuals, 
i. No. 15 ; Egerton Papers, 447. 



1615. 

Sept. 



240 FRANCIS BACON. 

IX. 19. the sheriff, and thus, without condemnation in any civil 
court, Bartholomew Legate perished in the Smithfield 
flames. 

This is the precedent Macaulay seeks. 

20. It is right to add that the Privy Council abandoned 
all proceedings against Paulett and Berkeley at an early 
date, and that Sydenham was restored to his freedom 
purged in fame. It is also right to add that the notion 
of treating Edmond Peacham as though he were in 
some sort a Puritan martyr is an aberration of the mod- 
ern biographical mind. The Puritan writers say nothing 
for him ; he has no place in the pages of Toulmin or of 
Neale. He was degraded by a Puritan Archbishop, prose- 
cuted and condemned by a Puritan Secretary of State. 

20. Council Reg., Mar. 26 ; Chamberlain to Carleton, Mar. 2, 1615, S. P. 0. 



CAER, EARL OF SOMERSET. 241 



I 



CHAPTER X. 

RACE WITH COKE. 

1. Lord Campbell accuses Bacon of having fawned on X. 1. 
Somerset in his greatness, of having abandoned him in his 

fall. Part of this accusation was made by Coke ; not all ' 

of it ; and in a whisper, not in boldly-spoken words. A 
glance at the facts, as they stand in the registers of the 
Privy Council and the archives of the State Paper Office, 
will suffice, it is thought, to convince an impartial reader 
that Bacon's course through these proceedings against 
the Earl and Countess of Somerset was in the highest 
degree noble and humane. Such a reader will see that 
he was neither obsequious to Somerset in his pride, nor 
insolent to him in his disgrace. 

2. Somerset had not been friendly to Bacon's suit. 
Not that the young Scottish favorite was wholly wanting 
in sympathy for merit. His own abilities were not vast, 

1. Campbell, iii. 66; Yelverton to Bacon, Sept. 3, 1617, Lambeth MSS. 936. 

2. Bacon to Can-, Nov. 14, 1612, S. P. 0. Mr. Amos, in his Great Oyer 
of Poisoning, 1846, and Dr. Rimbault, in his Introduction to the Miscellaneous 
Works of Sir Thomas Overbury, 1856, have thro^vn light on the story of Somer- 
set; but the true history can be traced in its minute details nowhere save in the 
State Papers of 1612 - 15. These papers are far too numerous to cite. 

11 P 



242 FEANCIS BACON. 

X. 2. nor his tastes, except in dress, refined ; yet he was very 
far from being the abject creature that Lord Campbell 

^ t ' says. Abject of nature he was not ; guilty of murder he 
was not. More than one popular poet found in him a 
patron and a friend. He was kind to Jonson, more than 
kind to Donne. For years he maintained the closest inti- 
macy with Overbury ; a connection not to have been kept 
with that haughty and sensitive man of genius had Som- 
erset been the fool in feathers and rosettes he is com- 
monly made. But Bacon's policy was not his policy. 
Blown about with every wind, the favorite swayed from 
west to east, now moored among the extreme Puritans, 
now among the most bigoted of the Papists. When he 
at length chose a side, it was with the party against which 
Bacon had spent the best of his days and the most bril- 
liant of his powers ; for he suffered his name to be used, 
and his influence over James to be abused, by that iniqui- 
tous Spanish faction of which Sir William Monson was 
the pensioned agent, Lord Northampton the pensioned 
chief. 

A nature proof against gold was not proof against love. 
A pair of bright eyes, which, in the language of Donne, 

" Sowed the court with stars," 

turned upon him ; the eyes of Lady Essex, Lord North- 
ampton's niece. Her uncle set her on; that venal old 
pander putting the young wife of Essex in Somerset's way, 
tempting her virtue to break its vows, and lending his 
house to the profligate pair for their stolen kisses. Soft 
of heart, inclined by youth and rivalry to vice, Somerset 



MURDER OF OVERBURY. 243 

fell into the snares laid for him by wily graybeard and X. 2 
the shameless girl. 



3. Somerset won to their side, the Romanist party 
ruled the state. All that a doting prince has in his gift 
— rank, places, pensions, grants, monopolies, embassies, 
mitres — for a time were theirs. They gave to whom 
they would, and they sold to whom they could. They 
refused to give Bacon the Court, of Wards. They sold it 
to Cope. But their reign was short ; for the actors in 
this drama of unholy love fell from their odious profligacy 
into a diabolical crime. Overbury, whom they feared, 
not only for his influence over Carr, but for the English 
vigor of his Protestantism, was done by them to death. 
At first they kept their secret ; and in truth the accusation 
against them was of a kind which defies belief. That 
three great earls, with three or four distinguished knights 
holding high positions in the country, should league them- 
selves with wizards, harlots, quacks, 'prentice-boys, and 
grooms, to murder a private gentleman for a few verses of 
reproof addressed to a friend in love, required the bold 
and morbid imagination of a Webster even to conceive. 
Poisoning, too, was rare : " It is neither of our country 
nor of our church," said Bacon; " you may find it in 
Rome or Italy ; there is a region or perhaps a religion for 
it." People forgot that Northampton was of that religion, 

3. Wake to Carleton, Venice Correspondence, Nov. 18, 1612; Chamberlain 
to Carleton, Nov. 26, 1612, S. P. 0.; Bacon's Speech in Star Chamber, Nov. 10, 
1615, S. P. 0. 



1615. 

Sept. 



244 FRANCIS BACON. 

X. 3. that his associates were Italians and Jesuits, and that his 
early days had been spent in Florence and Rome. 



1615 

Sept. 



4. Yet suspicion spread. The poet's kinsmen mur- 
mured. Some who understood his character, many who 
admired his writings, spoke of his sudden death, his sin- 
gular interment. Then, the publication of " The Wife," a 
poem which charmed all hearts by its wisdom and poetic 
beauty, kindled a burning wish to inquire into the poet's 
fate. Five editions of The Wife were sold in a year; 
five thousand voices began to call his enemies to account. 
The cry could not be stifled. Men forgot their affairs to 
ask about the poisoners of Overbury ; the ordinary courts 
of law, even the playhouses, were abandoned for the de- 
velopment of a more striking drama. Term, says Bacon, 
was turned into a justicium or vacancy by it. Yet, who 
was to set the law in motion ? Those to be touched by 
the officers of justice, perhaps by the hangman, stood 
among the highest in the land. Who would lay finger 
on the Howards and the Carrs? 

5. Men sprang up for this desperate duty. By his 
union with the wife of a living man, Somerset grieved the 
church of which Abbott was the hierarchical head, not 



4. A Wife, now a Widowe, 1614; A Wife, now the Widow of Sir Thomas 
Overburye, 1614; Do., in three subsequent impressions, 1614; Bacon's Speech 
in Star Chamber, Nov. 10, 1615. 

6. Archbishop Abbott's Narrative, in Rushworth, i. 460; Bacon's Speech 
in Star Chamber, Nov. 10, 1615; Weston's Examination, Sept. 28, 29, Oct. 2, 3, 
5, 6, 1615, S. P. 0.; Sir Thomas Monson's Examination, Oct. 5, 1615, S. P. 0. 



PROCEEDINGS AGAINST POISONERS. 245 

less than the Puritan congregations of which Win wood X. 5. 
was considered the parliamentary chief. The Archbishop, 
having strained his strength and jeopardized his life to Sept . 
prevent the divorce, was ready to fight, with such allies 
as God might send him, against the malign ambition and 
insatiable greed of Lady Somerset's kin. Therefore, when 
the cry for justice on the murderers of Overbury rose to 
heaven, he offered his high rank and holy character as a 
shield to such witnesses as, without this august protection, 
would scarcely have dared to wag their tongues. Win- 
wood, Egerton, Zouch, Southampton, Essex, Pembroke, 
and Montgomery, all the more patriotic peers, the friends 
of poets, the founders of Free States, joined hands with 
the brave Archbishop in this crusade against vice and 
crime. Bacon, who had known the poet and admired 
the qualities of his genius, went with the English church- 
man and the English peers. 

The bright eyes and soft cheek of George Villiers, a 
prettier man than even Carr, reconciled the King's heart 
to a general arrest and rigorous examination of his old 
favorite's bosom friends. Coke managed the case against 
them. 

Soon the confessions of Franklin, Weston, and Anne 
Turner implicated high persons. Northampton was be- 
yond the reach of law ; but his tools or dupes, Sir 
Gervase Helwys, Sir Thomas and Sir William Monson, 
were still alive. Coke lodged them in the Tower ; sent 
Helwys to the gallows ; got a true bill found against Sir 
Thomas Monson at Guildhall, and would have put him 



246 FRANCIS BACON. 

X. 5. to death, with or without evidence of his guilt, but for 
the necessity of keeping him, an unconvicted man, as 
evidence against Carr. 



1615, 

Sept. 



Nov. 6. In these trials of the assassins, it is remarkable that 
Bacon, though holding office as Attorney-General, has no 
share. Either his gentle nature shrinks from the horrors 
of a criminal prosecution, or Coke excludes him from 
proceedings in which he expects to find abundant profit 
and fame. Either supposition may be true. It is ob- 
vious from the record of the criminal courts that Bacon 
must often have left to others, when he might have 
taken the part himself, the dramatic and exciting task 
of chasing criminals to death. None of Coke's thirst 
for blood parched up his soul : the trials of Essex and 
Sanquhair are almost the sole cases in which Bacon 
took part that ended in the loss of life. Coke, bent on 
hanging and bowelling all these miserable wretches, may 
have feared his tender heart and his respect for the forms 
of law. Certain it is that Sir Lawrence Hyde acts as 
Crown prosecutor, and that one at least of the prisoners, 
that one a woman, is hurried to the gallows in a way 
which no lawyer can now defend. 

1616. 1. In the more important trials of the Earl and Count- 
May 24. ess of Somerset, not before Coke, but before the highest 

6. State Trials, ii. 911-948; Welden, 101. 

7. Sherburne's Report of Lady Somerset's Trial, May 24, 1616, S. P. 0. ; 
Winwood to Wotton, May 2, 1616, Venice Correspondence, S. P. 0.; Bacon's 
Charge, in Montagu, vi. 235. 



CASE OF THE SOMERSETS. 247 

court in the realm, the House of Peers, Bacon assumes X. 7. 
his place. Lady Somerset pleads guilty, throwing her- 
self on the mercy of God and the King, — drawn to that M u 
course by an understanding, or a promise, that her ap- 
peal to the Crown shall be mercifully heard. Bacon is 
prepared for either course : the notes of a speech intend- 
ed to have been made against her are preserved among 
his works. They are singularly merciful and gentle. 
Somerset's case comes last. Lord Campbell assumes his 
guilt ; but such a study of the confessions as he gave to 
the evidence against Sarah Chesham or William Palmer 
would convince him that, though guilty of some deprav- 
ity of heart and understanding, as well as of criminal 
weakness towards his wife and her associates, it is very 
far indeed from sure that he was guilty of any share in 
Overbury's death. No proof was given, nor has any 
proof been yet found, that Somerset knew of Weston 
being put into the cell to kill Overbury, or of the Count- 
ess sending the relays of poisoned tarts and soups. It is 
certain that he was deceived throughout by Lord North- 
ampton. Yet, on the other hand, it is not to be denied 
that his indolent selfishness led him to the very verge of 
connivance in the crime. It was a case of doubt, and 
will remain so to the end of time. Bacon claimed strict jus- 
tice from the Peers, while he left the gates of mercy open 
to the Crown. The Peers condemn Somerset, but with a 
tacit understanding that his life shall not be taken away. 

8. When Somerset has been sent to the Tower, — when 



1616, 

May. 



248 FEANCIS BACON. 

X. 8. the Howards are cast down from their bad eminence, and 
the flagitious Spanish clique seems broken by their fall, — 
Bacon's voice is raised for clemency. When he has done 
his duty as Attorney-General, he remembers his privi- 
leges as a Christian and a man. Life enough has been, 
taken. Helwys, Weston, Franklin, Anne Turner, all the 
more active agents in the deed, are gone. The Countess 
has a baby at her breast, — that little girl who, born in 
shame, will live to become the mother of William Lord 
Russell. She has confessed her guilt, she has been aw- 
fully punished, and the remnant of her years is doomed 
to obscurity and shame. The Earl maintains his inno- 
cence ; the world has not been satisfied of his guilt. 
Humanity and Law alike concede to him the protection 
of every doubt. Bacon's counsel to the Crown must be 
allowed to be pure. He owes nothing to Somerset in the 
past, — he can have nothing to hope from him in the 
time to come. 

9. He has some domestic and rather humorous trials 
of his own. Sir John and the lady in Worcester break 
his rest. Having put his scorn upon Lord Eure, and 
worried him into selling his place to Lord Gerard ; hav- 
ing got, with the help of Gervase Babington, Bishop of 
Worcester, a grant from the Crown to restore his pool ; 
having finished his house in the middle of Westwood 



8. Bacon to James, April 28, 1616. 

9. Council Reg., Mar. 7. 1615; Dom. Papers James the First, lxxxvii. 67, 
S. P. 0.; Wotton, i. 186. 



LADY PAKTNGTON. 249 

Park, and given a banquet to Lord and Lady Compton X. 9. 
and their train in honor of the event, which has been the 
talk of neighboring shires, the warm old knight, having May> 
no one left to fight with, has begun to fuss and wrangle 
with his wife. The widow, on her side, is now perverse. 
Sir John has to turn her out of doors. When she leaves 
the park and rides up to town, her clothes and trinkets, 
sent on before her, are stolen on the way. In the full 
belief that Sir' John has caused her to be plundered, Lady 
Pakington sends her wrongs to the Privy Council, and 
begs to have a general warrant of search for her stolen 
trunks. This piece of domestic comedy stands solemnly 
recorded in the Council-books : — 

March the seventh, 1615. 
Present : 

George Abbott, Archbishop of Canterbury. 

Thomas Howard Earl of Suffolk, Lord Treasurer. 

Edward Somerset Earl of Worcester, Lord Privy Seal. 

William Herbert Earl of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlain. 

The Earl of Dunfermline. 

The Bishop of Winchester. 

Lord Knollys. 

Sir Ealph Winwood, First Secretary of State. 

A General Warrant directed to all His Majesty's 
Public Officers. 

" Whereas complaint hath been made unto us by the 
11* 



250 FKANCIS BACON. 

X. 9. Lady Pakington, wife to Sir John Pakington, knight, 
that, having occasion to repair to London, and sending 

May> * up divers trunks of apparel and other necessaries for the 
use of her person, the same was carried aside, and as yet 
detained from her, to her great hindrance and prejudice. 
These are therefore to will and require you to make 
search in all places where you shall be directed by this 
bearer for apparel belonging to the Lady Pakington, and 
the same being found to cause it to be delivered to this 
bearer for her use." 

This warrant to search for Lady Pakington's hoods and 
jerkins, fans, ruffs, and farthingales, is signed by the 
Archbishop, the Lord Treasurer, and the rest ! 

10. It may for charity be hoped the poor lady finds 
her trunks, though the Council-books say no more about 
them. Certain it is that when she again goes home to 
Westwood Park she nags and frets Sir John, and not 
Sir John alone. Two of her girls are now married, and 
she does her very worst to make their husbands as miser- 
able as her own. How Mervin Touchet bears her tongue 
we are not told ; but this young lord being rather crazed, 
and exceedingly vicious and tyrannical, it is likely enough 
that he submits, as such men do, to the woman's cold, 
dry, dogged will. Not so, Francis Bacon, who insists to 
her surprise and rage, on being the master in his own 
house. When she tries on him the arts which have some- 

10. Montagu, xiii. 63. 



1616. 

May. 



LADY PAKINGTON. 251 

times roused, but more frequently have turned Sir John, X. 10 
he tells her in the plainest words to mind her own busi- 
ness, and mind it better than she has done. He even 
shuts his door upon her when he finds her naught. If 
she hints in her own sweet way that, should he turn his 
wife out of the house, as she supposes he soon will, now 
that he has turned his deaf side to her mother's counsels, 
she will receive her back from him, and give her, the poor 
outraged thing, a home, Bacon quietly reminds her that, 
considering what is passed, and who has been already cast 
off once, it is more likely that she will come to beg a room 
at Gorhambury than that Lady Bacon will need to seek 
one at Westwoocl Park. 

This letter is in Montagu ; but though curious to the 
last degree, it has passed unnoticed the eye of every 
writer of Bacon's life, because the relation of Bacon to 
Lady Pakington has not been known. I reproduce it in 
connection with the domestic facts to which it belongs, 
and which it helps to explain. 

To my Lady Pakington, in answer to a Message by 
her sent. 

Madam, — 
You shall with right good-will be made acquainted 
with anything that concerneth your daughters, if you 
bear a mind of love and concord, otherwise you must be 
content to be a stranger unto us ; for I may not be so un- 
wise as to suffer you to be an author or occasion of dissen- 



1616. 

May. 



252 FRANCIS BACON. 

X. 10, sion between your daughters and their husbands, having 
seen so much misery of that in yourself. And above all 
things I will turn back your kindness, in which you say 
you will receive my wife if she be cast off ; for it is much 
more likely we have occasion to receive you being cast 
off, if you remember what is passed. But it is time to 
make an end of those follies, and you shall at this time 
pardon me this one fault of writing to you ; for I mean 
to do it no more till you use me and respect me as you 
ought. So, wishing you better than it seemeth you will 
draw upon yourself, 

I rest yours, 

Fr. Bacon. 

11. The merciful part which Bacon, as Attorney- 
General, plays in the release of Sir William Monson and 
Sir Thomas Monson from the Tower, having escaped the 
researches of Basil Montagu, has escaped the criticisms 
of Lord Campbell. Yet the facts of this interference 
embrace a continuation of the duel with Coke, and are 
essential to an understanding of some of the remoter 
causes of Bacon's fall. 

In the first warm days of discovery the two Monsons 
were flung into the Tower. The proof would have gone 
hard against them. They were Papists. They were 
friends of Northampton. They were intimate with Lady 

11. Waad's Statement, Sept. 1615, S. P. 0. ; Coke's Memorandum, Sept. 11, 
1615, Jan. 8, 1616, S. P. 0.; James to the Commissioners, Oct. 21, 1615, S. P. 0.; 
Coke to the King, Dec. 4, 1615, S. P. 0. ; Sir Thomas Monson to Coke, Dec. 5, 
1615, S. P. 0. 



INTEKCEDES FOE THE MONSONS. 253 

Somerset. Sir William Monson was the secret agent X. 11. 
of the Spanish Ambassador. Sir Thomas had been the 
means of placing Weston in Overbury's cell. Any actual May< 
participation in the murder has never yet been proved 
against either of them ; yet in the flush and anger of 
the public, more could have been brought against them 
than any twelve Protestant jurors would have asked in 
order to their condemnation. Guildhall would have pro- 
nounced them guilty, as King's Bench had pronounced 
Anne Turner guilty, and Coke would most gladly have 
sent them to the gallows or the block. 

But Bacon feels that, now the King has resolved to 
pardon Somerset and his guilty wife, the Monsons cannot 
be put to death without shocking all reasonable, con- 
scientious men. They are Catholics ; but he cannot treat 
their religion as a crime. Coke is furious. As one of 
the four commissioners for the prosecution, he has made 
a vast collection of secret papers on the subject ; these 
papers he refuses to give up ; and from threats which 
he has used on hearing that he may be balked of his 
prey, it is feared that in his fury he may send them to 
the press. 

12. The advocates of mercy hie to the King. James 
commands Bacon to require from Coke the surrender 
of all these documents for his Majesty's use. The At- 
torney-General thereupon writes to the Lord Chief 
Justice : — 

12. Bacon to Coke, April 16, 1616, S. P. 0.; Carew to Roe, Jan. 18, 1617, 
S. P. 0. 



X. 12. 



1616. 



254 francis bacon. 

Bacon to Coke. 



May. My Lord, — 

I received yesternight express commandments from 
his Majesty to require from your Lordship, in his Majes- 
ty's name, all and every such examinations as are in 
your Lordship's hands of Sir William Monson for his 
Majesty's present service. Therefore, I pray your Lord- 
ship either send them presently, sealed up, by your ser- 
vant, or, if you think it needful, I will come to you my- 
self and receive them with mine own hands. I rest, your 
Lordship's loving friend, to command, 

Fr. Bacon. 

This Tuesday, at seven o'clock in the morning, 16th of 
April, 1616. 

Imagine the rage of Coke ! No evidence to connect Sir 
William with the murderous scenes in the Tower has 
been discovered, while the proofs of his connection with 
the Spanish Ambassador, and of his disbursements of 
money to the partisans of Spain, are of a kind not to be 
produced by the king in a court of law. 

13. Sir Thomas Monson's case is far more difficult 
than Sir William's ; for Sir Thomas was in daily com- 
munication with Helwys when the poisons were being 

13. Coke to the King, Feb. 8, 1616, S. P. 0. ; Queries by Coke, Feb. 1616, 
S. P. 0. ; Chamberlain to Carleton, June 8, 1616, S. P. 0. 



CASE OF COMMENDAMS. 255 

given, and his warm recommendation of Weston first x - 13. 
encouraged Helwys to permit and then to share the 
crime. Yet a careful examination of the mass of evi- May . 
dence in the State Paper Office must convince a lawyer 
that Monson was no worse than Northampton's tool and 
dupe. He was guilty of Romanism, — a crime which 
Coke, and many bigots like Coke, would have punished 
with the drop. He was guilty, too, of grave indiscretion 
and of crawling subserviency towards Northampton. 
How could the Crown lawyers deal with such a case ? 
Monson had undergone a public examination, not a 
public trial. Coke would have his life. 

14. But while the two Monsons lie in the Tower, each June, 
loud in his denial of guilt, yet scared in soul by the 
violence and injustice of his adversaries, Coke himself, 
the most eager and malicious of those adversaries, crashes 
down suddenly from his high place. 

That command to give up the confessions and examina- 
tions of Sir William must have gone to the quick ; as it 
not only robs him of the power to bully and hang a man 
for whose creed he has no tolerance, but takes from him 
a case in which he feels a lawyer's pride, to give it over 
to one whom of all living man he most loathes and fears. 
This wrong he resents in word and deed. Seeing scorn 
and insult on the brow of a prince from whom he hoped 
to win smiles and bounty, he droops into discontent and 
opposition. In the great case of Commendams he comes 
into fatal collision with the King. 

14. Carew to Eoe, Jan. 18, 1617, S. P. 0. 



256 FRANCIS BACON. 

X. 15. 15. The case of Commendams, on the law of which 
Egerton and Bacon differ from Coke, may be explained 

June> in a few words. A living in commendam was in the 
same position as a ward in custody ; it was confmitted to 
some one's care. The custom of such holdings in the 
church arose in troublous times, when a Genseric was in 
Rome or an Attila in Gaul ; then sees and parishes, left 
without occupants, were given in commendam to the 
nearest bishop or the nearest priest. In time the Popes 
discovered in this system of holding sees or livings a 
means of rewarding a loyal friend or buying off a for- 
midable foe. In England, too, the plan had its use and 
its abuse. Some of the livings were so rich, while some 
of the sees were so poor, that a clergyman might lose in 
worldly state by his translation to the bench of spiritual 
peers. Such a fact, it is obvious, must have limited the 
choice of the Crown, in case of vacancy among the bish- 
ops, to the lower or less fortunate ranks of the clergy, -«- 
a limitation not to be desired or endured, had not the 
Crown, when succeeding to the rights of the Holy Chair, 
inherited the power of granting livings in commendam. 
Yet such a power was open to grave abuse. Paulo 
Sarpi has denounced the evils which it brought upon 
Roman Catholic communities, where a Pope's bastard 
or a Cardinal's nephew, under the title of a holder in 
commendam, swept the revenues of a province into his 
private purse. 

16. Storia del Concilio Tridentino, 1629; Collier's Ecclesiastical History of 
Great Britain, vii. 389; Council Reg., June 6, 1616. 



CASE OF COMMENDAMS. 257 

While Coke is in his rage, the case of a living held in X. 15. 

commendam comes before the King's Bench. It is a pri- 

& . 1616. 

yate cause ; but Sergeant Chibborne, in the course of his- June> 

speech, goes out of his way to contest the King's power 
to grant commendams at all. Fearful lest the angry 
Chief Justice may pronounce a verdict touching the 
Crown, without the Crown being heard in its defence, 
James mounts a messenger for London commanding 
Bilson and Winwood to attend the next sitting of the 
Court of King's Bench and report to him the arguments 
there used. Winwood being sick, Bilson, Bishop of 
Winchester, is the sole witness ; but his report alarms 
the King in high degree, for he hears Chibborne con- 
tend that the Crown has no power to grant livings or 
sees in commendam save in cases of extreme need ; and 
that no such need can arise in England, where no man is 
bound to keep hospitality beyond his means. 

1-6. Informed by Bilson of what has passed in the 
King's Bench, James sees the gravity of his position, 
and commands Bacon to write and require Coke to put 
off the further hearing of this case until he, the King, 
can come to town and consult the judges. This com- 
mand a servant carries from Gray's Inn to the Lord 
Chief Justice's room in Sergeants' Inn ; when Coke, 
who is just setting out for Westminster Hall, sends 
his own man to Gray's Inn to beg that Mr. Attorney 

16. The Judges to James, April 27, 1616, S. P. 0.; James to the Judges, 
Council Reg., June 6, 1616. 



1616. 

June. 



258 FRANCIS BACON. 

X. 16. will give to each of the twelve judges a copy of his 
note. 

Coke's presence has been required in the Court of 
Chancery to assist in hearing a case for the Crown ; 
but setting the immediate duty of the day aside, defy- 
ing the royal command, as conveyed through Bacon, 
he goes down to Westminster, takes his seat in the 
King's Bench, and calls the forbidden case. After a 
further hearing he takes the judges to his rooms in 
Sergeants' Inn, where he persuades them to sign a let- 
ter to the King, throwing the blame of his disobedience 
on Bacon, whose request for a posponement of the trial 
they condemn as contrary to law and to the oaths of 
a judge. 

17. James reads this letter with amazement. If his 
rage against Coke, and his fears of encroachment, do 
not lure him one day sooner from his dogs and deer, 
he pens a smart rebuke to the judges, who, when they 
see how the tide sets, begin to feel heartily ashamed of 
what they have signed. They know, indeed, that the 
reasons given by Coke are a mere pretence ; that Ba- 
con's letter was sent by command ; that the Crown has 
power by law to grant livings in commendam ; and 
that to delay the hearing until James could arrive in 
town and lay his arguments before them would neither 
interfere with justice nor disturb their oaths. All 
these points of the case the King sets forth in his 

17. Council Reg., June 6, 1616. 



COKE BEFORE THE COUNCIL. 259 

note with unsparing ire. He ends by once again, in X. 17. 
his own words and in his own name, insisting that the 
hearing shall be stayed, referring them, with a good Jane ' 
sense of which he is seldom capable, to his Attorney- 
General for his opinions on particular points. 

18. Ambling to town for the Whitsun games, he June6 - 
sends for his twelve judges to the palace. Of the 
many comedies played in that superb political theatre, 
few have been so droll as this trial of the judges by 
the King. All the great officers of state are present ; 
the King himself, Archbishop Abbott and Bishop Bil- 
son, Lord Chancellor Egerton and Lord Treasurer Suf- 
folk, Win wood Secretary of State, and Zouch Lord 
Warden of the Cinque Ports, together with a host of 
inferior councillors and clerks. Bacon stands there to 
defend himself. Coke, a member of the Privy Council, 
takes his seat. 

The men whose lives have been one long duel, who 
have pleaded in the same courts, who have made love 
to the same woman, who have served in the same House 
of Commons, who for thirty-five years have been at guard 
and thrust, appear in a scene which can only end in dis- 
aster for one of them, perhaps in ruin for both. James 
opens the inquiry. Bilson states what he heard in the 
King's Bench. Bacon's letter and Coke's reply are put 
in as evidence and read. Eleven of the judges see their 
error. Falling on their knees, they confess their fault 

18. Council Reg., June 6, 1616. 



1616. 

June 6. 



260 FKANCIS BACON. 

X. 18. and implore the King's most gracious pardon. Coke 
alone, if wrong at first, has courage enough to be wrong 
at last ; maintaining that the facts of his note were 
true, and that Mr. Attorney's message was against his 
oath. 

James turns to his Chancellor ; but Egerton, before 
pronouncing judgment, begs, as the case involves points 
of law, that Bacon may first be heard. 

19. Bacon rises. In the portrait of Van Somers, paint- 
ed a few weeks later, we see him as he stands confronting 
Coke. Thirty-six years have passed since he entered 
on the fag and contest of the world ; but thirty-six years 
of toil, thought, study, disappointment, and success, have 
neither soured his blood nor disturbed the beauty of his 
face. The bust of Somers is the bust of Hilyard come 
to its perfect growth. Brow broad and solid ; eye quick 
yet mild ; nose straight and strong, of the pure old 
English type ; beard trim and dainty, as of one to whom 
grace is nature ; over all the countenance a bold, soft, 
kindling light ; an infinite sense of power and subtlety 
and humor, unmixed with any trace of pride. 

20. Turning to the King he shows, by proofs which 
seem superfluous, tha/t in staying the hearing Coke would 
have hurt no law, broken no oath. The Lord Chief 



19. The portrait of Van Somers is at Gorhambury. 

20. Council Reg., June 6, 1616; Sherborne to Carleton, June 12, 1616, 
S. P. 0.; Gerard to Carleton, June 14, 1616, S. P. 0. 



FALL OF COKE. 261 

Justice starts to his feet ; the King's counsel, he says, X. 20. 
may plead before the judges, they must not dispute with 
them. Bacon answers for his order and for himself, that June 6 
a King's counsel is, by his office and his oath, free to 
proceed or declare against any man, against the great- 
est lord in the kingdom, even against any body of men, 
though they were peers and judges ; and he demands 
from the King's justice that this spirt of bad temper 
and worse law shall be withdrawn. James sides with 
his Attorney-General, and Coke has to eat his words. 

The Lord Chancellor now asks that the oath of a 
judge may be read ; and when Yelverton has done this, 
he pronounces judgment wholly against Coke. In Eger- 
ton's verdict the judges all concur ; promising for them- 
selves to respect all future messages from the Crown. 
Coke alone answers that he will do what he shall find 
fit for a judge. 

The fall of this arrogant man is soon noised in the 
Strand and at St. Paul's. 

21. Bacon is sworn a member of the Privy Council; june9. 
as in every stage of his rise, without a bribe. The 
very first act of this new Councillor, who, on grounds 
of humanity, is moving heaven and earth to save a couple 
of Papists from the gallows, is to induce the favorite and 
his master to restore the famous Puritan preacher Doc- Junem 
tor Burgess to his ministry in the Church. Burgess 

21. Council Reg., June 9, 1616; Montagu, xiii. 233; Carew to Eoe, Jan. 18 ? 
1617, S. P. 0. ; Chamberlain to Carleton, July 5, 1617, S. P. 0. 



262 FKANCIS BACON. 

X. 21. has long been silenced. Many congregations wish to hear 
him ; among others, the Honorable Society of Gray's 
Inn. Bacon prevails, and the thunders of the great 
preacher are again heard at St. Paul's Cross. 



1616. 

June 16. 



June 30. 22. Bacon is nominated one of a commission, with 
the Lord Treasurer, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and 
other ministers, to consider a plan for raising funds by 
selling the old feudal right of homage and by disaffor- 
esting the distant and unprofitable Crown-lands. 

More than sufficient offences are soon discovered 
against Coke — frauds, contempts, and disobediences — 
to insure a condemnation either in the Star Chamber or 
in any court over which the Crown can name the judge. 
When he hears of this investigation into his past life, 
the bully of Westminster Hall lowers his tone. Not 
that his course on the bench has been impure ; it has, 
in fact, as all the world knows, been ostentatiously the 
reverse of impure ; yet the practice of all the courts 
is so unsafe, the system of fees so lax, that no man on 
the bench can stand up against an accusation brought 
by the Crown. No judge on the bench knows better 
than Coke that to be tried for a Crown offence is to be 
condemned. In the most grovelling key he prays to be 
spared the shame of a public trial ; on his knees he 
implores the Council to protect him ; saying, and very 



22. Council to the Commissioners, June 30, 1616, S. P. 0.; Council Reg., 
June 26, 30, 1616 ; Chamberlain to Carleton, June 22, 1616, S. P. 0. ; Sherborne 
to Carleton, June 29, 1616, S. P. 0. 



FALL OF COKE. 263 

truly saying, that any man in place, however high his X. 22. 
state, however clean his hands, may be crushed by an ~~ 
indictment laid in the royal name. Again and again June30 
he appears before the Privy Council, under his rival's 
eyes, in the same ignominious attitude, begging for 
mercy in the same miserable tone. 

The woman who in his prosperity was the torment J«iy 
of his life no sooner finds him grovelling on his knees 
before men deaf to his groans, and the savings of his 
long practice at the bar menaced with fine and forfeit, 
than she bounds to his side, makes his suit her own, 
worries her kinsmen for help, besieges the Queen with 
petitions, and declares that, come evil or come good to ' 
her husband, she will share his fate. 

23. Though Anne puts forth her weakness in his Oct. 
cause, Coke is degraded from the Council, forbidden to 
travel circuit, commanded to revise his Keports. Vil- 
liers against him, the poor Queen is snubbed ; and Lady 
Hatton, in place of conciliating those who might help 
her suit, insults the favorite's mother, and on her com- 
plaint gets sent away from court. Coke humbles his 
pride, confesses his fault, nay, darkens his fame as a 
jurist and a judge, by stooping, on the King's demand, 
to alter his Law Reports ; a confession of guilt if his 

23. Vffliers to Bacon, Oct. 3, 1616, Lambeth MSS. 936; Williams to Carle- 
ton, July 3, 1616, S. P. 0. ; Chamberlain to Carleton, July 6, Oct. 26, Nov. 9, 
14, 23, 1616, S. P. 0. ; Sherborne to Carleton, July 11, Oct. 5, 1616, S. P. 0. ; 
Winwood to Carleton, July 13, 1616, S. P. 0. ; Egerton's Speech to Montagu, 
Nov. 18, 1616, S. P. 0. ; Grant Book, 197, 198. 



264 FRANCIS BACON. 

X. 23. cases are false, a dishonest compliance if he believes 
them true. Even this last concession is made in vain. 
Oct. When stripped of his office and deposed from the 

bench, his wife, who was going to make his cause her 
own, packs up her furniture and plate, leaps into her 
coach, and leaves him to his loneliness and rage. His 
seat in the King's Bench is offered to Bacon and de- 
clined. Sir Henry Montagu, Recorder of London, a 
man of very great wealth and very high abilities as a 
lawyer, grandson of Bluff King Hal's famous Lord 
Chief Justice, and founder of the ducal line of Man- 
chester, gets his place. 

Nov. 24. The fall of Coke throws light into the Tower. 

Sir Thomas Monson gains the liberty of that fortress. 
Sure that Monson ought not to be tried, since it has 
become improbable that he could be convicted and im- 
possible that he could be hung, Bacon is not the less 
sure that for the King's credit and for Monson's own 
safety he ought not to be merely set free. He proposes, 
therefore, with the full concurrence of Sir Henry Yel- 
verton, that a pardon shall be granted under the Seal, 
reciting Monson's plea of innocence, the dubious proofs 
against him, and the gracious clemency of the King. 
Egerton backs this compromise ; for he too, though 
himself a convert from the Church of Rome, believes 
with Bacon that a gentleman may be a Papist without 

24. Council Reg., Aug. 10, 1616; Bacon to James, Dec. 7, 1616, S. P. 0.; 
Statement of the Case of Sir Thomas Monson, Feb. 12, 1617, S. P. 0. 



ADVISES PARDON FOR SIR T. MONSON. 



being a traitor. In his own nanie and that of Yel- X 24. 
verton. Bacon communicates this plan to James : — 



1616. 



Bacon to King James. 

7th of December. 1616. Dee. 

It may please your most excellent Majesty. — 
According to your pleasure, signified unto me. your 
Attorney, by word of mouth, we have considered of the 
state of Sir Thomas Monson's case, and what is fit further 
to be done in it. and we are of opinion. — first, that it is 
altogether unfit to have a proceeding to a trial, both be- 
cause the evidence itself (for so much as we know of it) 
is conjectural, as also for that to rip up those matters now 
will neither be agreeable to the justice nor to the mercy 
formally used by your Majesty towards others : secondly. 
to do nothing in it is neither safe for the gentleman, nor 
honorable (as we conceive) for your Majesty, whose care 
of justice useth not to faint or become weary in the latter 
end. Therefore we are of opinion that it is a case fit for 
your Majesty's pardon, as upon doubtful evidence, and 
that Sir Thomas Monson plead the same publicly, with 
such protestations of his innoeency as he thinks good. 
and so the matter may come to a regular and just period, 
wherein the very reading of the pardon, which shall re- 
cite the evidence to be doubtful and conjectural, added to 
his own protestations, is as much for the reputation of 
the gentleman as we think convenient, considering how 
things have formerly passed. Hereupon we have advised 
1-2 



266 FEANCIS BACON. 

X. 24. with the Lord Chancellor, whom we find of the same 
opinion. All which, nevertheless, we, in all humbleness, 
Dec 7 " submit to your Majesty's better judgment. 
Your Majesty's most humble 

and most bounden servants, 
Fr. Bacon, 
Henry Yelverton. 

1617. The advice is welcome. A pardon, drawn up in this 
Feb. 12. sensej p asses under the Seal. Monson, brought up at 
the bar of the King's Bench and this paper read to him, 
declares his innocence once more, protests that his par- 
don should be read as evidence of his innocence, not of 
his guilt. Montagu, now Chief Justice, tells him it may 
be read in this sense, and Monson with a joyful heart 
goes home from the Tower. 

25. Egerton is sick. Though he will not give up the 
Seals, as Yilliers presses him to do, while he can sign his 
name, he begins to divest himself of the minor offices and 
responsibilities of the world ; among other changes yield- 
ing the Stewardship of St. Albans to the friend who now 
sits by his bed, lightening his pains and cares, and whom 
he, like all the world, has sealed for his successor in the 
Court of Chancery. Among the public affairs in which 
Bacon is employed are, the Disorders in our Trade with 
Spain, and a Report touching a child supposed to have 

25. Add. MSS. 19, 402; Sherborne to Carleton, Feb. 8, 1617, S. P. 0.; Coun- 
cil Reg., Feb. 2, 1617. 



1617. 
Feb. 12. 



RUMORED OFFSPRING OF ARABELLA STUART. 267 

been left by Lady Arabella Stuart. The first is referred X. 25 
to Bacon alone, with power to collect evidence and to 
offer remedies for the wrong. The second concerns the 
King more nearly than the murder of English crews, the 
confiscation of English goods. This story of a royal child 
lie refers to four commissioners, the highest functionaries 
of the state — Abbott, Suffolk, Winwood, and Bacon ; 
Bacon, on whom the burden of inquiry falls, represent- 
ing the great lawyer now lying sick at York House. 

26. After Lady Arabella's death in the Tower a whis- Feb. 2. 
per flew abroad that her romantic marriage had not been 
altogether barren ; that she had given birth to a child 
while confined in Sir Thomas Parry's house at Lambeth ; 
and that this heir of the Seymours was still alive. The 
story has a deep and romantic interest. If there be such 
a child, it stands very near the throne, — uniting, as it 
must, in one head the rival claims of the Seymour and 
Lennox lines of descent from Henry the Seventh ; there- 
fore a rival, as some folks think, to the King's own chil- 
dren, and one who may become truly formidable should 
the rickety Prince of Wales not live. Such a birth was 
not unlikely in itself. The Lady Arabella was only 
thirty-six when she fell in love and secretly gave her 
hand to William Seymour. They were married weeks 
before their amour was discovered. Even when parted 
by force, their love and wit found means for meeting. 
Even when Seymour was in the Tower, he so far won 

26. Council Reg., Feb. 2, 16, 1617. 



268 FEANCIS BACON. 

X. 26. upon his jailer by his youth, his misery, or his gold, that 
he was frequently allowed to go up the river and see his 

Feb. 2 wife- Nothing, therefore, in the tale of a child haying 
been born to all this love appears improbable to men 
who fear or hate the King, while the motives for con- 
cealment, if it has been born, are clear to all. James 
is profoundly moved. A new Perkin Warbeck menaces 
his throne. 

True or false, the story is a serious fact for James and 
for his dynasty : not less grave for them if false than true ; 
unless it can be wholly and forever rooted out from the 
minds of men. Hence the commission. For a time the 
mystery defies even Bacon's subtlety of search and proof. 
It is always hard to prove a negative, — most hard in such 
a case as this, The commissioners may convince them- 
selves ; they have to convince a credulous world, at the 
risk of leaving that world open to seduction by any knave 
who may choose to play his head against a crown. They 
send for Seymour, who knows nothing or will tell them 
nothing. They send for Sir John Keys and Doctor 
Mountford, physicians to the royal lady. They question 
Edward Kirton and Edward Keeves, her body servants. 
None of these will own to knowledge of the birth of any 
child. Such evidence is, however, far from decisive. 
Where are Lady Arabella's waiting-women ? 

It is known that, while imprisoned in Parry's house, 
Arabella's waiting-woman was called Ann Bradshaw. 
Ann has dropped out of sight, though no one thinks that 
she is dead. Where is she ? The Seymours don't know. 



EUMOKED OFFSPEING OF AEABELLA STUAET. 269 

Her old friends and fellow-servants don't know. Such x - 26. 

a fact is of itself suspicious. Is the missing maid watch- 

r ° 1617. 

ing over the missing child ? There must be an end of Feb< 2 . 

these questions. If alive, and between the four seas, Ann 
must be found ; for on her testimony hang the chances 
of a civil war. 

A search through every shire from Exe to Tweed dis- 
covers her in Duffield, — an obscure village lost among 
the snows of the Peak. Though old, full of aches and 
pains, her memory is good : she remembers everything 
about her unhappy mistress, was with her day and night 
in Parry's house, and is positive she never had a child. 
The local magistrates dare not jolt her off to London 
through the winter cold, the doctors saying she would 
die on the road. A message speeds to Bacon. Not an 
hour is to be lost ; the weal of millions hangs on the 
words of this sick creature ; so he mounts for Duffield 
Sir Clement Edmondes, a trusty Clerk of the Privy 
Council, to see the woman and take her important evi- 
dence on oath. Clement sends in his report. The tale 
sworn by the waiting-woman convinces the commission- 
ers and the Council that the rumor of a young Sey- 
mour, born of Lady Arabella, being in existence is a lie. 
In witness of this inquiry, and of this result, James 
causes an elaborate statement of the facts to be inserted 
in the Council Register, signed by George Abbott, 
Thomas Howard, Ralph Winwood, and Francis Bacon. 
The search which satisfies the Council seems to satisfy 
mankind. It is, indeed, amazing that, during all the 



270 FRANCIS BACON. 

X. 26. troubles and illusions of the succeeding forty years, no 
one ever assumed the character of Lady Arabella's son. 

1617. 

Mar. 7. 27. Four weeks after closing this delicate inquiry 
Bacon receives the Seals. Egerton's love bears fruit; 
but the risks of failure in his suit have indeed been great 
for Buckingham makes no secret of his wish to ruin the 
old Chancellor and sell his place. While the favorite 
haggles with aspirants for the office about its price, the 
King himself puts the Seals into Bacon's hands. 

Riding down to York House, he thanks his old friend, 
and in his Majesty's name presents him with the patent 
of an Earl. He now turns to the Court of Chancery, 
not in despair at the long arrears, but with confident 
sense of his power to conquer the vast accumulation of 
work. The rules which he lays down, the spirit in which 
he decides, are beyond all praise. Nor do the labors of 
his Court, the ceremonial of his rank, and the sittings 
of the Council consume his strength. He instructs 
Buckingham in the arts of government. He toils at his 
Novum Organum. Within a week of his investiture the 

Mar. 17 King leaves London for the Northern Kingdom, calling 
Bacon to the exercise of very extraordinary powers. In 
commission with Pembroke, Suffolk, and a single secre- 
tary, he receives power to pardon able-bodied offenders 
under sentence of death, save only those convicted of 



27. Council Reg., Mar. 7, 24, 1617; Grant Book, 200; Chamberlain to Carle 
ton, Mar. 15, 1617, S. P. 0.; Commission to Abbott, Bacon, and others, Mar. 
17, 1617, S. P. 0. 



KECEIVES THE SEALS. 271 

rape, burglary, witchcraft, and wilful murder, and send X. 27. 
them over sea. In commission with Abbott and others, 
he is authorized to pass securities for loans, to issue Mar#17 
proclamations, to conduct the Irish business, to perfect 
the ecclesiastical commission, and generally to conduct 
the government of the realm. Yet, in spite of this 
enormous addition to his active duties, he clears off the 
whole arrears of Chancery causes by the end of June. 



272 FRANCIS BACON. 



1617 
July. 



CHAPTER XI 



LORD CHANCELLOR. 



XL l. 1. In striding over Coke's head to the Mace and Seals, 
Bacon puts the crown to his many offences against that 
wealthy and vindictive foe. Their lives have been spent 
in a daily contest for rank, love, place, and power. Up 
to the present year Coke has been able to keep in 
front. He made more money, he won Lady Hatton, 
he first got office under the Crown. He went up to the 
Common Pleas while Bacon was fighting for his promo- 
tion at the bar. Before the great philosopher was com- 
missioned as Attorney-General, the great jurist had been 
seated on the King's Bench. For the three years and 
four months that Bacon, as Attorney, waited in the 
Council anteroom, Coke sat at the board. The scene is 
now changed, the characters reversed. "Within a few 
weeks Coke has been degraded from the Council to make 
way for Bacon, and reduced from the King's Bench that 
his rival may feel the insolent joy of refusing to accept 
his place. The humiliation has now been capped by 
Bacon niching from him, at the very moment of his 

1. Council Reg., Nov. 4, 1613; Yelverton to Bacon, Sept. 3, 1617, Lambeth 
MSS. 836. 



EGEETON'S LATTER DAYS. 273 

negotiation with Timers, the Mace and Seals, without XI. 1. 
paying for them one shilling of those irregular sums 
which he himself was told he must lay down. Such a July ' 
success enrages the miser even more than it galls the 
man. 



2. How can he drag this rival down ? The way is but 
too easy. Gain the favorite. Yirtue is no protection to 
men in power. He has been thrown. Egerton only 
escapes an ignominious fall by the approach of death. 

The story of Egerton's latter days has never yet been 
told. As an illustration of the time, it is in the highest 
degree important for a clear comprehension of his suc- 
cessor's fall. 

As Egerton grew old a host of lawyers and ecclesiastics 
began to crave the Seals ; conspicuous among these were 
Bilson and Bennett, Hobart and Coke. The Great 
Seal, though held like the White Staff during pleasure, 
changed hands so rarely that the possession was regarded 
as one for life. Pickering, Hatton, Bromley, Nicholas 
'Bacon, kept the Seals to the last, as Northampton, Salis- 
bury, Dorset, and Burghley kept the Staff. The rule 
applied to every office in the Household and the State. 
Now this appearance of a permanent possession gave to 
each holder of office a vested right in it, which had a 
market value. No man ever yielded his place without 
being paid for it, any more than a colonel of the line 

2. Sherborne to Carleton, Feb. 23, 1617, S. P. ').; Lovelace to Carleton, Mar. 
11, 1617, S. P. 0. 

12* B 



1617 

Jaly. 



274 FRANCIS BACON. 

XI. 2. gives up his commission without his price. Death only 
could deprive him. As Egerton would not die though 
he had held the Seals longer than any Chancellor since 
the Conquest, nor yield his place except on reasonable 
terms of surrender, those who meant to make a purse by 
the transfer began to brood over the possibility of forcing 
him to yield by means of a criminal prosecution. A 
sentence in the House of Lords would be legal death. 
Once it were pronounced the Seals would fall into the 
King's gift. This was a new and perilous game to play ; 
but the plan seemed easy, the profits vast. A trial might 
be made. Any old lawyer learned in the vices of the 
times, could get up an accusation. Buckingham could 
secure a majority in the House of Lords. The tempta- 
tions which drew Buckingham into this odious and 
criminal course were very great. Sir John Bennett 
offered for the Seals no less a sum than thirty thousand 
pounds. 

3. This scheme of a criminal information quickened 
into life on Egerton's refusal to pass under the Seal some* 
patents in which the Villiers family had a share. Famous 
among these was a grant to Sir Giles Mompesson for the 
manufacture of gold and silver thread. Everybody wore 
lace. In the comic writers of James's reign, in Jonson, 
in Webster, in Massinger, the young gallants strut in 
lace, — not in the tawdry stuff sold by Autolycus as 
a present from country lads to country lasses, but in 

3. Sign Manuals, vi. 109; Com. Jour., i. 530-676. 



PLOT TO RUIN EGERTON. 275 

glinting silver and gold ; the metals dropping in threads XL 3. 

from the ruff, or wrought into the doublet and hose, the 

' & 1617. 

cloak and cap. Venice could not supply the want. The July . 

price of gold and silver lace ran high ; and the profits of 
the trade all went abroad. A Licenser of Inns, Sir Giles 
Mompesson, a man of energy and wealthy conceived a 
scheme for introducing this profitable manufacture into 
England. There were serious difficulties. Silver and 
gold were scarce ; sometimes not to be bought except 
on ruinous terms. The patent under which he was to 
work must not alone protect his trade, but allow him to 
take up gold and silver for his need, even the coin of 
the realm. By giving two of Buckingham's brothers a 
share in the business, Mompesson hoped to secure pro- 
tection for his enterprise. 

4. Blind to the lights of trade, Egerton refused to seal 
this grant. Not that he perceived and lamented the true 
evil of monopolies ; every profession was then a guild ; 
and without a monopoly there could be no trade. The 
grocer, the perfumer, the vintner, the tailor, was each 
invested in a charter or a patent. Egerton, during his 
long reign as Chancellor, passed hundreds of patents, 
some of them far more mischievous than the one for 
enabling the London spinners to rival their Venetian 
brethren in the production of gold and silver thread. 
His repugnance to it sprang from the contempt of an 
old man for new fripperies of dress and show, and from a 

4. Chamberlain to Carleton, Mar. 8, 1617, S. P. 0. 



276 FEANCIS BACON. 

XI. 4. fear that Mompesson would ruin the Crown by withdraw- 
ing the coinage from circulation into trade. 



1617 

July. 



5. Buckingham was furious. Urged by his own vexa- 
tion and by his complaining brothers, he swore to ruin 
the did Chancellor. Agents sneaked about the Inns of 
Court speaking evil of the great lawyer, now on his bed 
of death, provoking all who had suffered wrongs, or who 
fancied they had suffered wrongs, in his court, to rise up 
against the tyrant. Men soon answered to the call. A 
blameless life, a sick-bed, were no protection against this 
outrage. One said he had given money into the court ; 
another said he had given a ring, a cabinet, a piece of 
plate. In substance and form these tales were true, in 
spirit and intention they were false. Charges enough 
were gathered : charges more numerous, said Sir Wil- 
liam Lovelace, than those which had recently crushed 
Coke ; charges as flimsy and as fatal, I may add, as those 
which four years later served to overwhelm Egerton's 
successor. Buckingham sent to the sick man's room 
the news of this flagitious inquisition and its triumphant 
close ; it is greatly to be feared that the blow broke the 
old man's heart. 

6. It needs no magician to see that he who nearly slew 
Egerton might just as easily slay the successor of Egerton. 



6. Lovelace to Carleton, Mar. 11, 1617, S. P. 0. 

6. Chamberlain to Carleton, Mar. 11, 1617, S. P. 0. ; Gerard to Carleton, Mar. 
20, 1617, S. P. 0. 



1617. 

July. 



CALUMNIES OF COKE. 277 

Buckingham is cheated of his profit ; for though Bacon XI. 6. 
pays to Egerton eight thousand pounds for the surrender 
of his legal rights, not a shilling of this money flows into 
the favorite's purse. The Yilliers people are not pleased 
with a Chancellor who refuses to push their fortunes and 
feed their pride ; nor is Buckingham a man to forget 
that, if Egerton had been chased into the House of Lords, 
as Coke had been into the Star Chamber, he might have 
put into his own pocket from the transaction a good many 
thousand pounds. 

7. The loss is great. It is Coke's business to show 
Yilliers how it may be recovered. Bacon is not robust 
nor likely to live long. He works too much, and lives 
too well, for vegetable length of days. Gout racks his 
joints ; being the first beggar, as he jests, who ever had 
it. If he dies, well ; if not, he may be ruined. Coke, 
who begins by collecting scandals against him, whispers 
to the favorite that the new Chancellor is no true friend 
to him; that he is not zealous for the advancement of 
Sir Christopher Yilliers and Sir John Yilliers ; that he 
has been already false to Somerset, and may end by 
playing false with his Lordship. Buckingham lies open 
to such hints ; his family more open to the direct per- 
suasion of angels and double angels. Coke gets Lady 
Buckingham on his side. If he could only part with his 
hoards, his day of revenge might be near ; happily he 

7. Yelverton to Bacon, Sept. 3, 1617, Lambeth MSS. 936 ; Carleton to Cham- 
berlain, May 24, 1617, S. P. 0. 



278 FRANCIS BACON. 

XI. 7. cannot pay down his money even to assuage the rancor 

of his heart. 
Jal He thinks of a plan by which he may gain his end, 

yet save his pelf. 

8. A daughter has been born to Coke of his second 
wife. This wife and he never pulled together, and of 
late their wrangles have been louder than at first. Their 
marriage was a scrape, their wedded life has been a 
quarrel and a jest. She disdains to bear his name, she 
slams her door in his face. She gives entertainments 
in Holborn, from which he and his friends are inso- 
lently shut out. Their tastes are in the strongest degree 
opposed. 

He is penurious, she profuse. He loves folios and 
a farthing candle ; she lights and revels, masques and 
plays. By day and night a rout of fiddlers, dancers, 
wizards, lovers, and magicians pours through the gal- 
leries of her great mansion looking on the Fleet. Coke 
slinks in shame from the sight of all this devilry to his 
den in Sergeants' Inn. Their misery makes the sport 
of wits and gallants ; while in their quarrels and their 
unhappiness Bacon (though he has not himself escaped 
the common lot, — a mother-in-law) has nevertheless, in 
his own modest and tranquil home, good reason to 
thank heaven night and day for his escape from such 
a wife. 

8. Jonson's Metamorphosed Gypsies; Bankes's Story of Corffe Castle, 35 - 44 ; 
Lady Hatton to Cecil, undated Papers, xl. 6, S. P. 0. 



FEANCES COKE. 279 

9. The child of this dismal pair is blossoming into XL 9. 
a beauty and a toast, whose sensuous loveliness Jonson 
depicts in some of his most luscious lines : — July> 

" Though your either cheek discloses 

Mingled baths of milk and roses ; 
Though your lips be banks of blisses, 

Where he plants and gathers kisses ; 
And yourself the reason why 

Wisest men of love may die ! " 

Yet the beauty of her cheek and lips is the smallest 
part of Frances Coke's charms. As Lady Hatton's only 
child, she is heiress of Hatton House, of Corffe Castle, 
of Purbeck Isle. Coke privately offers this wealthy girl 
to Buckingham's mother for one of her pauper sons. 
A bargain is soon struck. Sir John Yilliers is to take 
her with twenty thousand pounds dower and a settlement 
of two thousand marks a year. Buckingham is to par- 
don all Coke's offences, and use his power to restore 
him to high place and confer on him high rank. 

To this huckstering Frances Coke is much averse, 
her mother still more averse. The young lady hates 
Sir John, a man old enough to be her father, without 
person or talents, and poor as a church mouse. Her 
mother huffs at a contract made at her expense, with- 
out her leave. That Coke should propose a scheme is 



9. Jonson's Gypsies Metamorphosed; Sherborne to Carleton, Dec. 7, 1616, S. 
P. 0.; Chamberlain to Carleton, Dec. 21, 1616; June 4, July 19, 1617, S. P. ; 
Winwood to Lake, May 27, 1617, S. P. 0. 



280 FRANCIS BACON. 

XI. 9. enough to make her loathe it. But in such a scheme 
as this match with Sir John Villiers she has better 

Ifil 7 

July, grounds for hesitation than a woman's whim. She 
very justly fears the tenure of a favorite's place. Has 
she not witnessed Somerset's golden rise and stormy 
end ? A twinge of gout, a saucy word, a prettier cheek, 
may turn the King's eye another way. What then ? 
With Buckingham's fall may come down all his house. 
Even now sharp eyes are turned on the rising star of 
Lord Mordaunt. Some note how James of late has 
begun to ogle a youth named Coney. Bets are made 
that Buckingham's fortunes are on the wane. Lady 
Hatton will not hear of such a match for her only 
child. Husband and wife dispute and quarrel, as they 
have always done over lesser things ; and when the 
Lord Keeper and the Council, anxious for peace, inter- 
pose between them, it is only, as results soon prove, 
to procure a reconciliation in which Coke tries to de- 
ceive Lady Hatton and Lady Hatton succeeds in deceiv- 
ing Coke. Each plots to outwit the other ; Coke bent 
on winning the good-will of Buckingham ; his wife on 
disposing of her daughter and her property as she her- 
self thinks best. Each plays the spy, makes friends 
among the servants, gets up factions in the house. Her 
people take Lady Hatton's part, more because they scorn 
the penurious old curmudgeon than because they like 
his prodigal and imperious wife. 

She steals a march upon him while he sleeps. Put- 
ting her child into a coach at dead of night, she slips 



FRANCES COKE. 281 

away to Oatlands, where she hides from pursuit in her XI. 9 
cousin Sir Edward Withipole's house. 



10. These domestic broils occur while James and 
Buckingham are in the north, — setting up organs in 
churches, wrangling over Kirk discipline, consecrating 
bishops in the land of Knox. The Lord Keeper is 
acting as a sort of regent. To him, therefore, in Coun- 
cil, Coke, when he has traced his wife and child, ap- 
plies for warrants of arrest. Bacon refuses. Coke flies 
to Sir John's mother ; his wicked wife, he tells this 
lady, has stolen his child, has poisoned her affections 
towards Sir John, and means to carry her into France 
to avoid the match with her ladyship's son. 

Her cupidity aroused, the great lady writes to com- 
mand the Lord Keeper to arm Coke with full powers 
of search and arrest. Bacon again refuses. What he 
feels it right to deny in one quarter, he has courage 
to deny in another ; though aware that his duty may 
be represented as an insult to Villiers, as an usurpation 
to the King. 

His refusal to do wrong at her bidding transforms 
Lady Buckingham into a ruthless and inexorable foe. 

11. Safe in the strength of his great patroness, Coke, 
defying the Lord Keeper and the Privy Council, arms 

10. Council Reg., July 11, 14, 1617 ; James to Bacon, July 25, 1617, in Birch, 
133. 

11. Chamberlain to Carleton, July 19, 1617, S. P. 0. ; Gerard to Carleton, 
July 22, 1617, S. P. 0. ; Council Reg., July 14, 1617. 



1617. 
July 



1617. 
July. 



282 FRANCIS BACON. 

XL 11. a dozen of his servants, rides down to Oatlands, runs 
a beam against Withipole's door, and, smashing into his 
wife's retreat, without warrant of arrest, without a con- 
stable, he seizes the fainting girl, tosses her into his 
coach, and hurries her away to Stoke. 

A universal howl pursues the perpetrator of this out- 
rage on the public peace. The Council meet to con- 
sider this violation of domicile. As they are rising for 
the day, Lady Hatton raves to the door. How can they 
they decline to see her ? She is a woman and in dis- 
tress ; she is of kin by blood or marriage to the Lord 
Keeper, to the Lord Treasurer, to half the Council ; 
she is pleading in her right. "When admitted to the 
Council chamber, she describes with consummate art the 
outrage she has suffered, the confinement of her daugh- 
ter in a lonely house, her sickness to the point of death, 
and she implores the lords, as only mothers robbed of 
their children can implore, that the child may be sent 
for, that her story may be heard, that a physician may 
see her lest she die. 

The Council grant her prayer. An officer of the court 
rides down to Stoke, takes the girl from her imprison- 
ment, and lodges her in town. 

juiy 21. 12. The Lord Keeper summons Coke to attend the 
Council and answer for this breach of the King's peace. 
With an insolence which his secret understanding with 

12. Council Reg, July 21, 1617; Chamberlain to Carleton, June 4, 1617, 
S. P. 0.; Yelverton to Bacon, Sept. 3, 1617, Lambeth MSS. 936. 



COKE'S SUBMISSION. 283 

the favorite's kin makes safe for him, Coke declares that XL 12. 
he has done his duty, that his wife meant to break the 

J 1617. 

match with Sir John Villiers, that she would have car- July 21 
ried his daughter away to France, that she herself tra- 
duced and set on her servants to traduce Sir John. 
Bacon, who may object to a marriage between Frances 
Coke and Sir John Villiers, — a marriage projected for 
his own humiliation and for the recovery of power by 
the late Chief Justice, — feels, as one of the Commis- 
sioners governing the realm, the gravest objection to 
such acts as those of Coke. He replies, therefore, in 
the name of the Council, that Villiers, as a gentleman 
worthy of the young lady, would have sought her in 
a noble and religious fashion, not with a gang of armed 
men, in a midnight brawl, in contempt of natural and 
statute law. 

Yelverton, the Attorney-General, declares that the late 
Lord Chief Justice, in violating Withipole's house with- 
out warrant or constable, has grievously offended against 
the law. None of the Council, certainly not the Lord 
Keeper, has any wish to weigh upon the irascible old 
man ; but when he fails to justify by witnesses any one 
allegation against his wife, they are compelled to file an 
information against him in the Star Chamber for breach 
of the peace, and allow his daughter the shelter of the 
Attorney-General's house. 

Coke shudders at this order for his appearance in the 
Star Chamber. Recently fined four thousand pounds 
in that court for taking bail of a pirate, he fears lest a 



1617. 

July 21. 



284 FRANCIS BACON. 

XL J 2. second accusation should end in a second fine. He 
cannot count on either gratitude or wisdom in the Vil- 
liers people. These thriftless adventurers may think 
it safer to take his money than wait for the chance of 
obtaining his wife's broad lands. He finds it wiser to 
defer to the Privy Council. With a rancorous ani- 
mosity in his heart towards Bacon, and with fiery rage 
against Yelverton, he bends so far as to undergo a 
pretended reconciliation with his wife. Bacon joyfully 
announces to the King that peace is made. 

July 25. 13. A line of writers closing in Lord Campbell rep- 
resents Bacon as first selfishly striving to thwart the 
match ; then, finding Buckingham bent on it, as plot- 
ting with Lady Hatton by underground and criminal 
practices to defeat it ; next, after bearing with abject 
spirit the most provoking taunts and threats from the 
favorite, as meanly condescending to eat his words and 
to forward a match which he must have detested with 
all his soul. The dates supplied by the Council Register 
correct these errors. Bacon's first note to Buckingham 
on the match has the date of July twelfth, his first note 
to the King that of July twenty-fifth. Before the earlier 
date, Lady Hatton and her daughter ran away, the ex- 
Chief Justice broke into Withipole's house, the Council 
met to consider his offence, and Clement Edmondes, 
their clerk, took charge of the girl. Before the later 
date, and before a single word was heard from Buck- 

13. Bacon to Buckingham, July 12, 25, 1617; Bacon to James, July 25, 1617. 



BUCKINGHAM'S INTERFEKENCE. 285 

ingham in answer, Bacon calmed the outrage, recon- XI. 13 
ciled husband and wife, and restored Frances Coke to 
her father's house. 



14. After all this was done, he wrote to Buckingham 
and the King the reasons which, in his opinion, made 
a marriage between John Yilliers and Frances Coke 
undesirable ; the refusal of Lady Hatton, the depend- 
ency of the young girl on her mother, the quarrelsome 
temper of the two parents, the notoriety and scandal 
of their domestic feuds, the disapproval of leading men 
in the Government, the recent disgrace of Coke, the 
divisions which his return to the Council would bring 
with it, — sage and honest reasons, one and all, which 
received the most prompt and signal justification from 
events. But Buckingham was blind. The King him- 
self forbade Bacon to oppose the favorite's schemes of 
family aggrandizement. Unable either to resist his Ma- 
jesty's commands, or to close his eyes on the coming 
evil, he accepted the duty laid upon him : " For my 
Lord of Buckingham, I had rather go against his mind 
than against his good. Your Majesty I must obey." 

15. Lady Hatton, on publishing a prior contract be- 



14. Vere to Carleton, Aug. 12, 1617, S. P. 0.; Gerard to Carleton, Aug. 18, 
1617, S. P. 0. 

15. Council Keg., Sept 24, 1617 ; Obligations and Oaths of Frances Coke to 
become tbe Wife of Henry Vere, July 10, 1617, S. P. 0.; Gerard to Carleton, 
Aug. 18, 1617, S. P. 0.; Herbert to Carleton, Oct. 6, 1617, S. P. 0.; Vere to 
Carleton, Oct. 20, 1617, S. P. 0. 



1617. 
July 25. 



Oct. 



286 • FKANCIS BACON. 

XL 15. tween her daughter and the young Lord Oxford, is put 

into arrest, and the marriage of Sir John and Frances 
1617. & 

0ct> celebrated with regal pomp. It begins in misery to end 

in shame. Lady Hatton resists every persuasion to 
appear, nor is there a single Cecil present at the rite. 
James makes the bridegroom Viscount Purbeck ; but 
he cannot make the young bride love or respect a man 
to whom she has been sold. Coke is content. To the 
chagrin of the Lord Keeper, to the terror of Yelverton, 
he returns to the Privy Council, — a lawyer out of work, 
— the situation in which his enmity can oftenest wound 
and his activity oftenest thwart the detested rival who 
holds the Seals. Expecting a coronet, Coke chooses for 
himself the title of Lord Stoke. He believes, as the 
world believes, that his rise will be the signal for Ba- 
con's fall ; yet such are the suavity and zeal, the splen- 
dor and success of the new Lord Keeper, — such his 
popularity on the bench and at Whitehall, — that, in 
spite of new scandals brought upon him and his family 
by Sir John and Lady Pakington, he is able to defy the 
malice of his enemies and to soar above every storm. 

16. When her daughter's husband received the Great 
Seal, Lady Pakington supposed that her day of deliverance 
from Sir John was at hand. The lusty knight, who has 
sunk her rents in his brine-pits and fish-ponds, has now 
grown old, verging on seventy years of age, while she is 
still young and hale. But time, which slackens his thews, 

16. Dom. Papers James the First, xcii. 88. 



QUARRELS OF THE PAKINGTONS. 287 

has left untamed his temper and his pride. The mother XI. 16. 
of a Lord Keeper's wife can surely get justice done to her 
at last against the tyrant ! She appeals to the law, and 0ct 
brings him before the Court of High Commission, where 
her cold, easy manner tells in her behalf, and his fluster 
and violence get him sent to jail and put under lock and 
guard. To Bacon's deep mortification, and despite his 
strenuous efforts to avoid the case, this domestic broil is 
referred to him. 

Under trials of excessive difficulty and delicacy, he bears 
himself between husband and wife, in this miserable stage, 
in a way to extort the praise of even those news-writers 
and gossips who are in other matters the harshest critics 
of his life. He tells Lady Pakington she is in the wrong, 
and that she ought to yield. He warns her against the 
hope of finding in him a lenient judge so long as she fol- 
lows her cold, unbending course. 

This is the testimony of an unfriendly hand : — 

Chamberlain to Carleton. 

July 5, 1617. 

There be great wars betwixt Sir John and his lady, 
who sues him in the High Commission ; where, by his 
own wilfulness, she hath some advantage of him and 
keeps him in prison. But the Lord Keeper deals very 
honorably in the matter, which, though he could not com- 
pound being referred to him, yet he carries himself so 
indifferently that he wishes her to yield, and tells her 



288 FRANCIS BACON. 

XL 16. plainly and publicly that she must look for no counte- 

nance from him as long as she follows this course. 
1618. & 

Jan. 17. Notwithstanding these scandals and vexations in 

his own family, the Lord Keeper rises in power, expands 
in fame. In January, 1618, he attains the higher grade 
of Chancellor. In July of the same year he becomes a 
Peer. His slanderers sink beneath his feet. No severity 
seems to the Privy Council too great for those, however 
high in rank, who menace his person or dispute his jus- 
tice. For a saucy word they send Lord Clifton to the 
Fleet : for a complaint against one of his verdicts they 
commit Lady Ann Blount to the Marshalsea. In 1620 
he publishes his Novum Organum, — a book which has in 
it the germs of more power and good to man than any 
other work not of Divine authorship in the world. He 
is now at the height of earthly fame. First layman in his 
own country, first philosopher in Europe, what is wanting 
to his felicity ? Neither power, nor popularity, nor titles, 
nor love, nor fame, nor obedience, nor troops of friends. 

1620. All these he has, — no man in greater fulness. If his 
heart has other longings, he has only to express his wish. 

1621. In January, 1621, he receives the title of Yiscount St. 
Albans, in a form of peculiar honor, — other Peers being 
created by letters-patent, he by investiture with the cor- 
onet and robe. 



17. Council Reg., Dec. 30, 1617, Mar. 17, 27, 1618; Grant Book, 241,283; 
Herbert to Carleton, Dec. 30, 1617, S. P. 0.; Chamberlain to Carleton, Feb. 3, 
1621, S. P. O. 



Jan. 27. 



1621. 

Jan. 27. 



SUDDENNESS OF HIS FALL. 289 

18. Yet, only seven months after printing the Greatest XI. 18 
Birth of Time, only three months after receiving in the 
King's presence the robe and coronet, he is stripped of 
his honors, degraded from his great place, condemned to 
a monstrous fine, and flung into the Tower. 

The tale of this fall is the most strange and sad in the 
whole history of man. 

18. Lords' Jour., iii. 105. 



13 



290 FRANCIS BACON. 



1620. 

Nov. 



CHAPTER XII. 



FEES. 



XII. 1. 1. To see why the threat of prosecution so deeply dis- 
turbed Egerton, and how easy it may be for unscrupulous 
men to frame a charge of corruption against his success- 
or, a reader who is not a lawyer should remind himself 
of the state of society in the days of James the First. 

There is no civil list. Few men in the court or in the 
Church receive salaries from the Crown ; and each has to 
keep his state and make his fortune out of fees and gifts. 
The King takes fees. The archbishop, the bishop, the 
rural dean take fees. The Lord Chancellor, the Lord 
Chief Justice, the Baron of the Exchequer, the Master of 
the Rolls, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General,* 
the King's Sergeant, the utter barrister, all the function- 
aries of law and justice, take fees. So in the great offices 
of state. The Lord Treasurer takes fees. The Lord Ad- 
miral takes fees. The Secretary of State, the Chancellor 
of the Exchequer, the Master of the Wards, the Warden 
of the Cinque Ports, the gentlemen of the Bedchamber, 
all take fees. Everybody takes fees, everybody pays fees. 

2. In some public offices and courts the amount to 



UNIVERSALITY OF FEES. 291 

be paid is fixed, either by ancient usage or by such a XII. 2 

common understanding as in modern times controls a 

° . . 1620. 

railway or steamboat fare. In some, particularly in the NoVa 
courts of justice, it is open. Bassanio may present his 
ducats ; three thousand in a bag. The judge may only 
take a ring. A fee is due whenever an act is done. The 
occasions on which, by ancient usage of the realm, the 
King claims help or fine are many: the sealing of an 
office or a grant, the knighting of his son, the marriage 
of his daughter, the alienation of lands in capite, his 
birthday, New Year's Day, the anniversary of his acces- 
sion or his coronation, — indeed, at all times when he 
wants money and finds men rich enough and loyal enough 
to pay. In like manner the clergy levy tithe and toll ; 
fees on christenings, fees on churchings, fees on mar- 
riages, fees on interments ; Easter offerings, free offer- 
ings ; charities, church reparations, church extensions, 
pews, and rents. 

In the government offices it is the same as in the 
palace and the church. If the Attorney-General, the 
Secretary of State, the Lord- Admiral, or the Privy Seal 
puts his signature to a sheet of paper, he takes his fee. 
Often it is his means of life. To wit, the retaining fee 
paid by the King to Cecil, as premier Secretary of State, 
is a hundred pounds a year. But the fees from other 
sources are enormous. These fees are not bribes. 

3. The same at the Bar and on the Bench. The Bar 
is a free profession, — a member of the Temple or of Lin- 



292 FRANCIS BACON. 

XII. 3. coin's Inn being bound to plead, as the knights whose 
swords are rust were bound to fight, in love and faith, 

1620. 

Nov taking no purse nor scrip. It is an order of courtesy and 
chivalry ; its members the soldiers of justice, pledged to 
protect the weak, to help the needy, to defend the right. 
Now, all this service is by law and usage free. A bar- 
rister may not ask wages for his toil, like an attorney or 
a clerk, nor can he reclaim by any process of law, as the 
clerk and the attorney can, the value of his time and 
speech. If he lives on the gifts of grateful clients, these 
gifts must be perfectly free. This theory of a counsel's 
hire, though old as our language and our institutions, is 
of course a sham. No junior on the Oxford circuit 
dreams of succoring damsels from love of Dulcinea, or 
freeing galley-slaves from the obligations of knighthood. 
No guineas, no speech. The shifts by which lax attor- 
neys are tickled into passing the fees which no law com- 
pels them to pay are droll as anything in the immortal 
laws of Barataria. 

4. Now, the rules which continue under Victoria to 
govern the Bar, under James the First governed the 
Bench. The Lord Chief Justice or the Lord Chancellor, 
like the Secretary of State, is paid by fees. The King's 
judge is neither in deed nor in name a public servant ; 
he receives a nominal sum as standing counsel for the 
Crown ; and for the rest he depends on the income aris- 
ing from his hearing of private causes. These facts 
appear in a comparison of the amounts paid by the 



FEES AT THE BAR. 293 

Crown to its great legal functionaries, with the estimated XII. 4. 
profits of each particular post. Thus the Seals, though 
the Lord Chancellor had no proper salary, were in Eger- Nov 
ton's time worth from ten to fifteen thousand pounds a 
year. Bacon valued his place as Attorney-General at six 
thousand a year ; of which princely sum (twenty-five 
thousand a year in coin of Yictoria) the King only paid 
him eighty-one pounds six shillings and eight pence. 
Yelverton's place of Solicitor brought him three or four 
thousand a year, of which he got seventy pounds from 
James. The judges had enough to buy their gloves and 
robes, not more. Coke, when Lord Chief Justice of Eng- 
land, drew from the State twelve farthings less than two 
hundred and twenty-five pounds a year. When travel- 
ling circuit, he was allowed thirty-three pounds six shil- 
lings and eight pence for his expenses. Hobart, Chief 
Justice of the Common Pleas, had twelve farthings less 
than one hundred and ninety-five pounds a year ; Tan- 
field, Lord Chief Baron of His Majesty's Court of Ex- 
chequer, one hundred and eighty-eight pounds six shil- 
lings a year. Yet each of these great lawyers had given 
up a lucrative practice at the Bar. After their pro- 
motion to the Bench, they lived in good houses, kept a 
princely state, gave dinners and masques, made pres- 
ents to the King, accumulated goods and lands. Their 
wages were paid in fees by those who resorted for justice 
to their courts. 

5. These fees were not bribes. If the satirists, from 

5. Dom. Papers James First, i. 68, S. P. 0. 



294 FRANCIS BACON. 

XII. 5. Latimer to Nashe, described the Bench of Bishops and 
the Bench of Judges as taking bribes, it was only in 
Not ' the vein common to lampooners in every age of the 
world ; the vein in which Boccaccio describes his Friars, 
and Jonson his Justice Overdos. Serious men made no 
complaint. Judicial corruption was not a grievance in 
1604. In 1606 an attempt to reduce the fees in one 
department of Chancery business was rejected by the 
popular party in the House of Commons. 

In the Great List of Grievances, drawn up in 1604, 
we find complaints that Cecil lives in adultery, that 
Parliament is packed with courtiers, that the Forest 
Laws have been revived, that pardons are sold to cut- 
throats and felons, that monopolies are granted to duns, 
and patents bestowed on extortioners and pimps ; not 
that the great lawyers are thought corrupt, or that jus- 
tice is supposed to be bought and sold. 

Nor is such a grievance felt though undescribed. In 
the List of Grievances there is one charge against the 
Lord Chancellor Egerton. Had there been a second, it 
would certainly have been named. In 1604 the charge 
which law reformers made against Egerton was that he 
held the two offices of Master of the Rolls and Keeper 
of the Great Seals. It never occurred to these men to 
complain that he took his wages in the shape of fees. 

6. In 1606 a bill was laid before the Commons, by 
a disappointed jobber, to reduce some of the fees for 

6. Tanner MSS. 169, fol. 42; Com. Jour., i. 259, 268, 279. 



SPEECH ON FEES FOR COPIES. 295 

copies in the Court of Record. In the debates on this XII. 6 
bill Bacon assumed a leading part. The argument of ~ 
counsel was against the interference of Parliament in Nov 
the unfair fashion of the bill, with what Bacon called 
the freeholds of the officers in that Court. The notes 
of his speech, which are in the Bodleian Library, and 
have not been printed, put the case as it appeared to 
the best minds in England in 1606, a year before he 
held any office under the Crown. Bacon showed that 
the bill to reduce the fees for copies originated in a 
spirit, not of reform, but of revenge ; that a similar 
bill had, in years gone by, been promptly rejected by 
the House ; that such a law to cut down fees was un- 
precedented ; that the bill was retroactive, against all 
law and justice ; that a man's right in his fees was sa- 
cred as his right in his goods and lands. Remembering 
all that is to follow, with how much curiosity one reads 
these nineteen heads of a discourse against the bill ! 

Sir Francis Bacon's Speech. 

First : It hath sprung out of the ashes of a decayed 
monopoly by the spleen of one man ; that, because he 
could not continue- his new exactions, therefore would 
now pull down ancient fees. 

Second : It knows the way out of the House ; for in 
the xxxv Eliz. the like bill was preferred, and much 
called upon at the first, and rejected at the engross- 
ment, not having twenty voices for it. 



296 FKANCIS BACON. 

XII. 6. Third : It is without all precedent ; for look into for- 
mer laws and you shall find that, when a statute en- 

1G20. J 

Nov acts a new office or acts to be done, it limits fees, as in 
case of enrolment, in case of administration, &c, but 
it never limits ancient fees to take away other men's 
freeholds. 

Fourth : It looks extremely back, which is against 
all justice of Parliament, for a number of subjects are 
already placed in offices : some attaining them in course 
of long service ; some in consideration of great sums 
of money ; some in reward of service from the Crown, 
when they might have had other suits and such offices 
again allied with a number of other subjects, who valued 
them according to their offices. Now, if half these 
men's livelihoods and fortunes should be taken from 
them, it were an infinite injustice. 

Fifth : It were more justice to raise the fees than to 
abate them, for we see gentlemen have raised their rents 
and the fines of their tenants, and merchants, trades- 
men, and farmers their commodities and wares ; and 
this mightily within c. years. But the fees of offices 
continue at one rate. 

Sixth : If it be said the number of fees is much in- 
creased because causes are increased, that is a benefit 
which time gives and time takes away. It is no more 
than if there were an ancient toll at some bridge be- 
tween Berwick and London, and now it should be 
brought down because that, Scotland being united, 
there were more passengers. 




SPEECH ON FEES FOR COPIES. 297 

Seventh : Causes may again decrease, as they do al- XII. 6. 
ready begin ; and therefore, as men must endure the preju- 
dice of time, so they ought again to enjoy benefit of time. Noy- 

Eighth : Men are not to consider the proportion be- 
tween the fee and the pains taken, as if it were in a 
scrivener's shop, because in the copies (being the prin- 
cipal gain of the officer) was considered ab antiquo his 
charge, his attendance, his former labors to make him 
fit for the place, his countenance and quality in the 
commonwealth, and the like. 

Ninth : The officers do many things sans fee, as in 
causes in forma pauperis, and for the King, &c, which 
is considered in the fees of copies. 

Tenth : There is great labor of mind in many cases, 
as in the entering of orders, and in all examinations. 
All which is only considered in the copies. 

Eleventh: These offices are either the gift of the 
King or in the gift of great officers, who have their of- 
fice from the King, so as the King is disinherited of his 
ancient rights and means to prefer servants, and the great 
offices of the kingdom likewise disgraced and impaired. 

Twelfth : There is a great confusion and inequality in 
the bill, for the copies in inferior courts, as for example 
the Court of the Marches, the Court of the North (be* 
ing inferior courts), are left in as good case as they were, 
and high courts of the kingdom only abridged, whereas 
there was ever a diversity half in half in all fees, as 
Chancellor's clerks and all others. 

Thirteenth: If fees be abridged as too great, they 
13* 



298 FEANCIS BACON. 

XII. 6. ought to be abridged as well in other points as in copies, 

and as well in other offices as in offices towards the law. 

1620. 

Noy> For now prothonotories shall have their old fees for en- 
grossing upon the roll and the like, and only the copies 
shall be abridged ; whereas, if it be well examined, the 
copies are of all fees the most reasonable ; and so of 
other offices, as customs, searches, mayors, bailiffs, &c, 
which have many ancient fees incident to their offices, 
which all may be called in question upon the like or 
better reason. 

Fourteenth : The suggestion of the bill is utterly false, 
which in all law is odious. For it suggesteth that these 
fees have of late years been exacted, which is utterly 
untrue, having been time out of mind and being men's 
freehold, whereof they may have an assize, so as the 
Parliament may as well take any man's lands, common 
means, &c, as these fees. 

Fifteenth : It casts a slander upon all superior judges, 
as if they had tolerated extortions, whereas there have 
been severe and strict courses taken, and that of late, 
for the distinguishing of lawful fees from new exactions, 
and fees reduced into tables, and they published and 
hanged up in courts, that the subjects be not poled nor 
aggrieved. 

Sixteenth : The law (if it were just) ought to enter 
into an examination and distinction what were rightful 
and ancient fees and what were upstart fees and en- 
croachments, whereas now it sweeps them all away with- 
out difference. 



BILL TO LIMIT FEES REJECTED. 299 

Seventeenth : It requires an impossibility, setting men XII. 6. 
to spell again how many syllables be in a line, and puts 
the penalty of xxs. for every line faulty, which is xvih7. Noy> 
a sheet. And the superior officers must answer it for 
clerks' faults or oversight. 

Eighteenth : It doth disgrace superior judges in court, 
to whom it properly belongeth to correct those misde- 
meanors according to their oaths and according to dis- 
cretion, because it is impossible to reduce it to a defi- 
nite rule. 

Nineteenth : This being a penal law, it seems there 
is but some commodity sought for, that some that could 
not continue their first monopoly might make themselves 
whole out of some penalties. 

These arguments prevailed. A committee being named 
to report on the bill, they reported against it, and the 
bill was laid asleep. 

7. A few years later, mainly through the speeches 
and the writings of Bacon himself, a feeling began to 
show itself against the payment of judges, registrars, 
and clerks, by uncertain fees. Each new Parliament saw 
the subject stirred. In the sessions of 1610 and 1614 
bills were introduced and dropped. But the argument 
for a great and just change of the old system grew 
under debate. The business of the courts increases 
daily, and the private causes have long ago become 
more numerous and important than the King's causes. 

7. Com. Jour., i. 427, 489. 



300 FEANCIS BACON. 

XII. 7. A plan, therefore, which may have done very well under 
Edward or Henry, may be a very great evil under James. 
Nov An unpaid Bench, though all that society wished for 
its defence under feudal or Brehon law, may obviously 
become a dangerous power in a highly artificial and 
litigious age. Such is the reasoning of many wise men. 
Not that justice is less purely dispensed under Bacon 
than of yore ; the reverse is a conspicuous fact. The 
improvement has been slow and safe. Hatton danced 
through his duties with more credit than Bromley ; Puck- 
ering surpassed Hatton, and Egerton eclipsed Puckering. 
The last Chancellor of all is the best ; in character as 
in intellect Bacon tops the list. A desire to change 
the fee system is not the child of discontent, but 
of growth. Under Edward or Richard the Commons 
would have refused a salary to the judge ; for a mag- 
nificently paid Bench would have seemed, and prob- 
ably would have behaved, as the ministers of a des- 
potic prince, eager only for their master's work, con- 
temptuous of the intrusion of private causes, callous to 
the concerns of common men. The profits from private 
suits quickened the stream of justice ; helped to main- 
tain the independence of the upright judge. Yet many 
men see that a time must come, some think it has 
come, when, through the growth of riches and the puri- 
fication of law, the system of various and precarious 
fees may be wisely abandoned for a system of payments 
by the State. 

8. An old lawyer like Coke knows how to turn this 



PLOTTINGS OF LADY BUCKINGHAM. 301 

war between an old system and a new sentiment to XII. 8. 
account. Time has neither cured his jealousy of Bacon 
nor cooled his resentment towards Yelverton. If the Nov ' 
alliance with Buckingham has not yet brought him the 
Mace and Seals, nor even the barony of Stoke, it has 
given him the favorite's mother for a friend. Lady 
Buckingham is busy for her kin ; her son John mar- 
ried and made a peer, she wants an heiress for her 
son Christopher, two or three rich husbands for her 
penniless nieces, a suitor, may be, for herself. A wife 
for Kit she may buy with honors, just as she bought 
Frances Coke for John. But husbands for her neices, 
men of high rank and wealth, she can only tempt into 
the noose with offices and power. She has bought Sir 
Lionel Cranfield up for one niece. For another she 
has fixed her eye on James Ley, the rich Attorney of 
the Court of Wards. Cranfield's wooing has been comic 
as a play. Falling in love with Lady Effingham, he pro- 
poses to her, and is about to marry her, when the news 
reaches Lady Buckingham, who instantly warns her mis- 
erable dependant that if he hopes to thrive at court 
he must give up Lady Effingham, and marry a young 
person, who is certainly poor in purse, but rich enough 
for two in friends. Cranfield takes the wife offered to 
him, with a seat at the Privy Council, and a promise 
of one of the highest places in the sovereign's gift. 

8. Harwood to Carleton, Feb. 6, 1619, S. P. 0. ; Brent to Carleton, May 29, 
1619, S. P. 0. ; Nethersole to Carleton, Jan. 18, 1620, S. P. 0. ; Chamberlain to 
Carleton, July 14, 1621, S. P. 0. ; Sign Man., Nos. 44, 53. 



1620. 

Nov. 



302 FRANCIS BACON. 

XII. 8. To lure him on, James Ley is made a baronet, and 
a special act under the Sign Manual remits to him the 
usual fees for the escutcheon of the bloody hand. 

These promotions, moreover, are but stepping-stones 
to place. What great offices can be got ? 

9. A beginning has been made with the White Staff. 

Suffolk was unpopular. The father of Lady Somer- 
set, an avowed Roman Catholic, a suspected pensioner 
of Spain, he was hated while in power with such bit- 
terness of hate, that when Buckingham's tools charged 
him with extortion, false dealing, bribery, and embezzle- 
ment, to none of which accusations he lay fairly open, 
no one felt either surprise or pity at the fate of this 
pernicious peer ; and when the Court of Star Chamber, 
with the sham proofs of his guilt before it, deprived 
him of the Staff, fined him thirty thousand pounds, 
and flung him during pleasure into the Tower, the 
whole country, which knew him to be a Papist and be- 
lieved him to be a spy, felt the sentence which de- 
prived him of power to do harm run through its veins, 
— a shock of joy. 

10. The profits of this transaction only kindle the greed 
for more. Yelverton's turn comes next. 

If not a Puritan in religion, Sir Henry Yelverton has 



9. Proceedings against the Earl of Suffolk, Nov. 13, 1619, S. P. 0. 

10. Bacon's Notes, Lambeth MSS. 936, fol. 133; Chamberlain to Carleton, 
June 28, 1620, S. P. O. ; Archsoologia, xv. 27. 



YELVEKTON'S CASE. 303 

generally spoken and voted with the Puritan party. A XII. 10 
man of good parts and unbending character, he has lived 
on friendly terms with Bacon, with whom he kept his Nov# 
terms at Gray's Inn and served in the House of Com- 
mons. His popularity in the House, like the popularity 
of Bacon, kept him out of office. In the debates, for 
many years his name stood side by side with that of 
Bacon, with whom he spoke for the subsidies and for the 
Union. The same breeze of favor brought them both 
into power. When Bacon became Attorney-General he 
used his influence to procure the Solicitorship for Yel- 
verton. Since then they have acted constantly together, 
most of all so in the effort to prevent Frances Coke from 
being forced to marry a man she could not love. Buck- 
ingham and the faction of Buckingham have never liked 
Yelverton. They have not been able to forget the cir- 
cumstances of his rise, to forgive the obstinacy of his 
demeanor, or the way in which he has exercised towards 
them his power. When Bacon got the Seals, Sir James 
Ley, who wanted to succeed him as Attorney, offered to 
pay Buckingham ten thousand pounds for the post. Lady 
Buckingham supported the lover of her niece ; but the 
King, when he put the Seals into Bacon's hands, himself 
passed the patent of office to Yelverton ; who refused to 
contract an obligation to Yilliers, though urged by Arch- 
bishop Abbott and the Duke of Lenox to conciliate the 
chief authority in the bedchamber and the closet. Yel- 
verton's offences are that he has been very manly, and 
that he occupies a very high post. 



1620. 

Nov. 10 



304 FRANCIS BACON. 

XII. 11. 11. Unhappily, in the exercise of powers not well de- 
fined, he has given an advantage to his hot and unscru- 
pulous enemy, Coke. A new charter has been lately 
passed to the city of London, with clauses favorable to 
the citizens, which Coke has no trouble in persuading 
James trench on the prerogatives of his Crown. It is 
not pretended that Yelverton took money for inserting 
these clauses, though it is admitted for the defence that 
in putting them into the charter he went beyond his 
powers. Sir Henry submits his error to the King's judg- 
ment. Such a course suits neither Buckingham nor 
Coke, who want his fine and the profits on his place. 
Cited into the Star Chamber, over which Bacon, as Lord 
Chancellor, presides, Yelverton admits his indiscretion, 
and Bacon, who cannot deny his fault, essays to soften 
his judges. The notes for his speech, written in his 
own hand, remain at Lambeth Palace. They stand as 
under : — 

Bacon's Notes on Yelverton's Case. 

" Sorry for the person, being a gentleman that I lived 
with in Gray's Inn, served with when I was Attorney, 
joined with since in many services, and one that ever 
gave me more attributes in public than I deserved ; and, 
besides, a man of very good parts, winch with me is friend- 



11. Lambeth MSS. 936, fol. 133; Yelverton's Speech in the Star Chamber, 
Nov. 10, 1620, S. P. O.; Locke to Carleton, Nov. 11, 1620, S. P. O.; Dom. Pa- 
pers, cxvii. 76. 



NOTES ON YELVERTON'S CASE. 306 

ship at first sight, much more joined with an ancient XII. 11. 
acquaintance. But, as a judge, I hold the offence very 
great, and that without pressing measure ; upon which I Nov 
will only make a few observations, and so leave it. First, 
I observe the danger and consequence of the offence ; for 
if it be suffered that the Learned Counsel shall practise 
the art of multiplication upon their warrants, the Crown 
will be destroyed in small time. The Great Seal, the 
Privy Seal, Signet, are solemn things, but they follow the 
King's hand. It is the bill drawn by the Learned Counsel 
that leads the King's hand. Next, I note the nature of 
the defence ; as, first, that it was error in judgment. For 
this, surely, if the offence were small though clear, or 
great but doubtful, I could hardly sentence it. For it is 
hard to draw a straight line by steadiness of hand, but it 
could not be the swerving of the hand. And herein I 
note the wisdom of the law of England, which termeth 
the highest contempts and excesses of authority mispri- 
sions, which (if you take the sound and derivation of the 
word) is but mistaken. But if you take the use and ac- 
ceptation of the word, it is high and heinous contempt 
and usurpation of authority. Whereof the reason I take 
to be, and the same excellently imposed, for that main 
mistaking it is ever joined with contempt; for he that 
reveres will not easily mistake ; but he that slights and 
thinks of the greatness of his place more than of the 
duty of his place will soon commit misprisions." 

Coke, furious at the sound of such mild, soft words, 

T 



1620. 

Nov. 



306 FRANCIS BACON. 

XII. 11. demands from the Court a sentence of imprisonment 

for life and a fine of six thousand pounds. Even the * 
judges of the Star Chamber will not go his length. 
They condemn Yelverton to a fine of four thousand 
pounds. 

d*c. 12. Two great offices, the Treasury and the Attorney- 
Generalship, are now for sale. Buyers crowd in ; for 
this system of ruining men in order to vend their posts 
is new, and no one yet perceives that to purchase a great 
office is to be in future the first step towards destruction. 
Montagu bids for the Staff; and as the purchase, if 
made, will cause him to leave the King's Bench, Lady 
Buckingham promotes his suit, that she may raise Ley 
to the rank of Lord Chief Justice and marry him to her 
pauper niece. On going down to Newmarket to see the 
King, Montagu calls to tell Bacon he hopes to bring back 
with him the Staff. " Take heed what you do, my 
Lord," says the Chancellor ; " wood is dearer at New- 
market than at any other place in England." The Treas- 
ury, with the title of Mandeville, costs Sir Henry Mon- 
tagu no less than twenty thousand pounds. 

13. Coventry buys the Attorney's office, and Heath 
becomes Solicitor in his place. At both ends Bucking- 
ham makes his profit. Not to speak of present bribes, he 

12. Apophthegms in Resuscitatio, 42; Locke to Carleton, Dec. 2, 1620, 
S. P. 0. 

13. Woodford to Nethersole, Feb. 2, 1621, S. P. 0. ; Chamberlain to Carleton, 
Feb. 3, 1621, S P. 0. 



1620. 
Dec. 



SIR LIONEL CRANFIELD. 307 

so arranges the game that these two removals bring him, XII. 13. 
or save him, eight hundred pounds a year. Lady Buck- 
ingham presents the King's Bench to Ley. 

These profits and promotions edge the tooth for more. 

14. In the crowd of able and unscrupulous men who 
wait in the anteroom of Villiers, and who build their 
fortunes on him, there is none more able or more un- 
scrupulous than Sir Lionel Cranfield. He had risen from 
the grade of a London apprentice, through the useful and 
unclean offices of a receiver, a contractor, and a surveyor 
of public income, to the rank of a Knight, a member 
of Parliament, and a Master of Requests, before he got 
introduced to the Yilliers gang. His life, indeed, has 
been a study of safe and decorous villany. He got his 
first step by making love to his master's daughter ; he 
grew rich by cheating the customs ; he won notice from 
the Council by telling them how to squeeze rich aldermen 
while lightening the load on such poor devils as him- 
self; he secured the protection of Lord Northampton by 
a bribe of land which was not his own ; he pleased the 
King by a plan for jobbing away the Crown lands on a 
more extensive scale : he fixed himself on Buckingham 
by betraying to him, or to his cause, his first patrons, the 
Howards. Cranfield was the chief instrument in de- 

14. Doquets, April 1, 1605, Dec. 20, 1607, May 31, 1610 ; Sign Manuals, No. 
49; Minute, Undated Papers of 1607, xxviii. 81; Northampton to Lake, Aug. 
12, 1612, S. P. 0. ; Winwood to Lake, Mar. 29, 1617, S. P. O. ; Brent to Carle- 
ton, Jan. 31, 1618, May 29, 1619, S. P. O. ; Nethersole to Carleton, Jan. 18, 
1620, S. P. O. 



1620. 
Dec. 



308 FKANCIS BACON. 

XII. 14. nouncing Suffolk and placing the Staff in Buckingham's 
hands for sale. To reward this service, Suffolk's son-in- 
law, Viscount Wallingford, was compelled by threats of 
prosecution, fine, and ruin, to surrender to Cranfield the 
Court of Wards. Only a villain of stony heart and 
brazen cheek could have either done this deed or taken 
this reward ; for these Howards whom he betrayed and 
spoiled were the very men who brought him into notice, 
presented him at court, and procured for him a seat in 
the House of Commons. But, in truth, there is no act 
of turpitude, short of the vulgar crimes for which men 
are hung, at which Cranfield, when his interests call, 
would stop. 

15. Bishop Goodman, who knew him well, and who 
has left a defence of him, such as it is, confesses for 
him to more dubious conduct and to more safe rascal- 
ities than would have blasted the credit of ten ordinary 
men. Courting the society of wits and scholars, pre- 
tending to wit himself, he has no true knowledge of 
letters, no true sympathy for such weak fry as poets 
and playwrights. Pelf is his god. His greed of money 
is a brisk passion, and he has a perfect familiarity with 
the crooked wavs in which money can be got. No rogue 
can deceive Cranfield. " Tush man ! " he will say, " I 
was bred in the city." His hand is in every one's purse ; 
and woe to the man on whose place he has set his 

15. Goodman, i. 295-308; Coryat's Description of a Philosophical Feast, 
Dom. Papers, lxvi, 2. S. P. 0. 



1620. 
Dec. 



JOHN WILLIAMS. 309 

heart ! To pull down judges and councillors, for his XII. 15. 
own advancement and for his patron's gain, is the task 
to which he has now devoted a busy and teeming brain. 
Since his marriage with Lady Buckingham's niece, he 
has been suffered to mulct and plunder at his ease ; 
and though some of his victims, mad with their losses, 
threaten to cut his throat, the audacious speculator in 
human roguery holds his course as though there were 
no retribution for injustice, either in this world or in the 
next. A loftier vista opens to his sight ; the Staff and 
the peerage seem within his reach ; but he can only 
grasp them by the help of that powerful and vindictive 
woman to whom he lately owed the pleasant alternative 
of destruction or a wife. 

16.. This great lady, if old enough to have grand- 
children, is not, in her own belief, too old to have a 
lover ; and one more subtle than a serpent is at her 
side. John Williams was the chaplain to Egerton when 
Egerton held the Seals ; but while blessing his master's 
meat and wine, he kept an eye on business ; and when 
Bacon, coming to York House, offered to continue him 
in his post, the divine refused, having begun to dream 
of recovering the custody of the Great Seal from the 
lawyers to the churchmen. In the face of candidates 
like Bacon, Montagu, and Coke, such a hope would 
seem to most men vain ; not so to one versed in the 

16. Doquets, Nov. 5, 1619; Welden, 127, 130; Speaker's Note, Feb. 6, 1621, 
S. P. 0. ; Chamberlain to Carleton, Mar. 20, 1620, S. P. O. 



310 FRANCIS BACON. 

XII. 16. arts by which a low order of monks and priests have in 

all ages striven to enslave the world. He makes court 
1620. & 

Dec . to Buckingham's mother ; convinced that no woman is 

insensible to the flatteries of love, least of all an am- 
bitious woman, greedy for pleasure and past her prime. 
When he has interested her passions in his career, his 
fight is well nigh won. She puts him in the way to 
rise. She recommends him to her son ; so shaping his 
course that, as either Lord Chancellor or as Archbishop 
of Canterbury, he may soon appear to the world in 
rank and power a husband less unworthy of herself. 

Buckingham finds in Williams a divine of easy virtue 
and specious talents ; who never prates to him about re- 
form, who pays no homage to the primate, who detests 
the House of Commons with all his soul. At a word 
from his new mistress or from her son, Williams would 
not scruple to send his archbishop to the Fleet, or to 
resist and insult the whole Puritan parliament, A man 
capable of rising through an old woman's folly and a 
young man's vices has not been slow to rise. The needy 
chaplain has become Dean of Salisbury and Dean of 
Westminster. He is to have the first mitre that falls 
into the King's gift. If Bacon can be ruined, he is to 
have the Seals. 

17. To three such schemers as an old Chief Justice, a 



17. Gerard to Carleton, May 9, 1617, S. P. 0. ; Chamberlain to Carleton, May 
10, 1617, S. P. 0.; Proposals concerning the Chancery, 1650; Council Reg., 
Sept. 28, 1622. 



THE CONFEDERACY AGAINST BACON. 311 

Master of the Court of Wards, and an ex-chaplain to the XII. 17. 
Lord Chancellor, urged by the sharpest passions of cu- 
pidity and revenge, and backed by the whole tribe of ^ 
Yilliers, an accusation against the holder of the Seals is 
easy enough to frame. The courts of law are full of 
abuses. The highest officer of the realm has no salary 
from the state. Custom imposes on him a host of ser- 
vants ; officers of his court and of his household ; mas- 
ters, secretaries, ushers, clerks, receivers, porters, none 
of whom receives a mark a year from the Crown ; men 
who have bought their places, and who are paid, as he 
himself is paid, in fees and fines. The amounts of half 
these fees are left to chance, to the hope or gratitude of 
the suitor, often to the cupidity of the servant or the 
length of the suitor's purse. The certain fines of Chan- 
cery, as subsequent inquiries show, are only thirteen 
hundred pounds a year, the fluctuating fines still less ; 
beyond which beggarly sum the great establishments of 
the Lord Chancellor, his court, his household, and his 
followers, gentlemen of quality, sons of peers and pre- 
lates, magistrates, deputy-lieutenants of counties, knights 
of the shire, have all to live on fees and presents. The 
causes heard are many, — five or six hundred in every 
term ; the servants of the court are not all honest ; some 
indeed are flagitious rogues. The Chancellor has not 
taken them voluntarily into his service, nor can he al- 
ways turn them adrift : their places are their freeholds. 
Among thousands of suitors, all of whom must have paid 
fees into the court, half of whom must be smarting under 



312 FRANCIS BACON.. 

XTI. 17. the pangs of a lost cause, it will be strange indeed if eun- 
ning, malice, and unscrupulous power combined, cannot 
Dec find some charge that may be tortured into the appear- 
ance of a wrong. 

18. They find a fitting instrument for this nefarious 
search. John Churchill is a wretch whose days have 
been spent in the most sordid tricks and chicaneries of 
law. His father was a defaulter in the Court of Wards, 
he himself was early in life concerned in a most infa- 
mous fraud. Ten years before he lends his services to 
the enemies of Lord St. Albans he sold to Sir John 
Bourchier, for a thousand pounds down and eighty 
pounds a year for life, a manor which Bourchier found 
that he had previously conveyed to his two uncles for 
twenty shillings. 

Bacon, who found this rascal occupying a place of 
trust in the Court of Chancery, detecting him in an act 
of forgery and extortion, has been compelled to turn him 
into the street. Broken for his bad faith, liable to severe 
punishment for his fraud, sore against his superior, he 
is just the man for Williams and Coke. Familiar with 
the court and with its clients, every vicious witness, every 
maddened loser, every knave who has been exposed, 
every dupe who has been hurt, are known to him by 

18. Grant Book, 62 ; Crump to Churchill, April 14, 1605, S. P. 0. ; Acton to 
Churchill, April 14, 1605, S. P. 0.; Mabel to Churchill, Aug. 28, 1605, S. P. 0.; 
Ellis Churchill to Churchill, Aug. 29, Sept. 19, 20, Oct. 3, 1605, S. P. 0.; 
Bourchier to Cecil, June 16, 1611, S. P. 0.; Chamberlain to Carleton, Mar. 24, 
1621, S. P. 0. 



1620. 
Dec. 



JOHN CHUECHILL. 313 

name and sight. A promise of protection from the law, XII. 18. 
with a restoration to his place on Bacon's fall, sharpens 
at once his greed and his hate. He hunts among the 
victims of Chancery law. Every one who has a grievance, 
or who fancies he has a grievance, against the Lord 
Chancellor, he persuades or compels to set down his 
tale. 

19. Ever since the day when Bacon got the Seals, 
Coke has been scoring up accusations against him. Lists 
were framed by the Yilliers clan, ready to lodge with the 
King, before the Chancellor had been a year in office. 
Every month has helped them to new matter. By the 
industry of Churchill they are now prepared to go before 
the Star Chamber ; but a patriotic proposal, made and 
pressed on the Crown by Bacon himself, shifts the scene 
of their accusation from the Star Chamber to the House 
of Peers. 

19. Yelverton to Bacon, Sept, 3, 1617, in Birch, 138. 



14 



314 FRANCIS BACON 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE ACCUSATION 



1621. 
Jan. 



Xin. 1. 1. It is no easy berth that Lord Mandeville has bought 
for his twenty thousand pounds. Soon he becomes 
aware that greedy eyes are on the Staff, that Buckingham 
is restless, and the Villiers clan hungry. The more he 
tries to please, the faster he multiplies his foes. Worse 
than all an empty exchequer gapes and yawns. " There 
is not a mark in the Treasury," he says to Bacon. " Be 
of good cheer then, my Lord," laughs the Chancellor ; 
" now you shall see the bottom of your business at the 
first." 

2. Something must be done. Bacon says, Call a par- 
liament. The spirit of reform runs high and grievances 
groan on every tongue. To meet the country is to court 
complaint and risk collision ; yet Bacon presses this 
counsel on the King, for a series of astounding events 



1. Bacon's Apophthegms, in Resuscitatio, 42. 

2. Council Reg., Dec. 27, 1620; Teynham to Edmonds, Dec. 23, 1620, S. P. 0.; 
Howard to Naunton, Dec. 26, 1620, S. P. 0. ; Replies of Peers and Bishops on 
the Palatinate Contributions, Undated Papers, cxviii. 43, 44, 45, 57, 58, 59, 60, 
S. P. 0.; Chamberlain to Carleton, Dec. 22, 1620, S. P. 0.; Com. Jour., i. 507, 
508. 



THE KING'S POVEETY. 315 

abroad makes a prompt and permanent reconciliation XIH 2. 

of the English Kino: and Commons a statesman's gravest 

1621. 
care. The Reformed Religion is at stake. Deploying Jan 

her troops and the troops of her Austrian and Bavarian 

allies into line, Spain has enveloped Germany in cloud 

and flame, opening the Thirty Years' War with the sack 

of the Palatinate and the occupation of Prague. Max 

is master of the Hradshin, Spinola of the Rhine. 

England, not less than the Protestant faith, is smitten 
by this blow ; for Frederick and the Queen of Hearts 
are fugitives from Prague ; the Winter King and Queen, 
as the fanciful Germans call them, owning neither prin- 
cipality nor kingdom, not even a home, on German soil. 

James, fooled by the Spanish Jew, Gondomar, is mum- 
bling about a Spanish match for his son Charles when 
surprised in his cups by news that Max and Spinola have 
robbed his daughter and her children of their native and 
elective crowns. What can he do ? His purse is empty, 
— his credit gone. The goldsmiths of Lombard-street 
will not cash his bonds. He tries, indeed, to beg funds 
from a patriotic and warlike people for the recovery of 
the Palatinate, making of the great Protestant ques- 
tion a small affair of his own household; but the trick 
is stale, the confidence of his people gone. No man 
will give or lend. Used as the King is to evasion, he 
is startled by the shabbiness of his peers in this great 
need. The Roman Catholic lords refuse on the ground 
of sickness, debts, and out of town ; their true reason, 
as he ought to know, is their secret sympathy for Spain 



1621. 

Jan. 



316 FRANCIS BACON. 

XIII. 2. and Bavaria as the armed protectors of the Roman 
Church ; but the bishops, the deans, the English clergy, 
with rare exceptions, close their fists with the same 
hypocritical lies. The goldsmiths speak like men ; they 
will not part with their money because they feel no confi- 
dence in the securities offered for their gold. They 
will send the King, they say, ten thousand pounds as 
a free gift, rather than lend him a hundred thousand 
with his crown for pledge. 

3. Under such discouragements from his courtiers, 
James listens to the voice of his Chancellor. If Lord 
St. Albans, in his earlier days, often had to differ from 
the House of Commons on subsidies and grants, it had 
never been through want of patriotism in the knights 
and burgesses ; only through their fears lest the moneys 
granted by them should be wasted, not on the regiments 
and fleets, but on the Herberts and Carrs. In the hour 
of peril St. Albans feels that he can trust their patriot- 
ism for supplies. The success of Max on the Weissen- 
berg, the devastations of Spinola on the Neckar and the 
Main, disasters the most signal which have yet befallen 
the cause of God and the cause of freedom, bring the 
external danger to our doors. The nation feels its loss. 
Men mourn the King's indifference to the cries of relig- 
ion and the claims of nature ; and a popular frenzy 



3. Thomas Scot's Vox Populi, 1620; Second edition of the sa*me, revised, 
1620 ; Undated Domestic Papers, cxviii. 102, 105, S. P. 0. ; Murray to Morton 
Jan. 11, 1621, S. P. O. 



1621. 

Jan. 



SCHEME OF REFORM. 317 

breaks into accusing prose and song, pouring its subtle Xin. 3. 
fire through the veins and arteries of the land in de- 
fiance of the most rigorous proclamations and the most 
savage censorship of the press. 

Bacon would meet the people. Let the King call a 
parliament together, state the situation, and throw him- 
self heart and soul into the religious war ! 

4. This time there should be no mistake. The ses- 
sions of 1610 and 1614 were lost through quarrels ; 
not one Act passed in either. Grievances must now be 
met ; reasonable men must be gained over to support 
the Crown. The enemy must see in England only one 
party, one flag. Therefore let the King become the 
leader of the Commons, let the Government adopt the 
business of reform ! 

Many voices in the Council rise against these proposals 
of the Lord Chancellor. But the Queen of Hearts cries 
loud for help ; the bankers will lend no more, the nobles 
will give no more ; so James, with many a pause and 
doubt, with many a sigh for the days, now gone forever, 
when he could chase the stag and quaff his strong Greek 
wine untroubled by the clash of arms or the brawl of 
tongues, consents to Bacon's plan. 

The Chancellor, with the help of four great lawyers, 
including Montagu and Coke, draws up a scheme to pro- 



4. Bacon to James, Oct. 10, 1620, Mar. 11, 1621; to Buckingham, Oct. 19, 
Dec. 19, 1620, printed in Birch, 1763, orig. at Lambeth Palace, 936 ; Statutes 
of the Realm, iv. 1207. 



318 FRANCIS BACON. 

XIII. 4. mote a safer feeling between the House of Commons and 
the Crown ; a scheme of reform as well as of defence ; 
Jan ' involving an immediate issue of writs, an honest hearing 
of public complaints, an abolition of unjust or unpopular 
monopolies, a withdrawal of some of the more obnoxious 
patents, above all an instant increase of the royal fleet. 

5. This statement, addressed through Buckingham to 
the King, and signed by Bacon, Montagu, Heath, Coke, 
and Crewe, has not heretofore been printed : — 

November 29, 1620. 

My very good Lord, — 
It may please his Majesty to call to mind, that, when 
we gave his Majesty our last account of Parliament's 
business in his presence, we went over the grievances of 
the last Parliament in 7mo., with our opinion, by way of 
probable conjecture, which of them are like to fall off, 
and which may perchance stick and be renewed. And 
we did also then acquaint his Majesty that we thought it 
no less fit to take into consideration grievances of like 
nature which have sprung since the said last session, 
which are the more like to be called upon by how much 
they are the more fresh, signifying withal that they were 
of two kinds. Some proclamations and commissions, 
and many patents, which, nevertheless, we did not then 
trouble his Majesty withal, in particular ; partly, for that 
we were not then fully prepared (it being a work of some 

8. Tanner MSS. 290, fol. 33. 



SCHEME OF EEFOEM. 319 

length), and partly for that we then desired and obtained XIII. 5. 
leave of his Majesty to communicate them with the coun- 
cil-table. But since, I the Chancellor received his Majes- Jan ' 
ty's pleasure by Secretary Calvert that we should first 
present them to his Majesty with some advice thereupon 
provisional, and as we are capable, and thereupon know 
his Majesty's pleasure, before they be brought to the 
table, which is the work of this despatch. And herein 
his Majesty may be likewise pleased to call to mind that 
we then said, and do now humbly make remonstrance to 
his Majesty, that in this we do not so much express the 
sense of our own minds or judgments upon the particu- 
lars, as we do personate the Lower House, and cast with 
ourselves what is like to be stirred there. And, therefore, 
if there be anything, either in respect of matter, or the 
persons that stand not so well with his Majesty's good 
liking, that Iris Majesty would be graciously pleased not 
to impute it unto us, and withal to consider that it is to 
this good end that lus Majesty may either remove such 
of them as in his own princely judgment, and with the 
advice of his council, he shall think fit to be removed, or 
be the better provided to carry through such of them as 
he shall think fit to be maintained in case they should be 
moved, and so the less surprised. 

First, therefore, to begin with the patents. We find 
three sorts of patents (and those somewhat frequent since 
the session of 7mo.) which in genere, we conceive, may 
be most subject to exception of grievance ; patents of old 
debts, patents of concealments, and patents of monopolies 



320 FEANCIS BACON. 

XIII. 5. and forfeitures of, or dispensations with, penal laws, to- 
gether with some other particulars which fall not so 
Jan.* properly under any one head, 

In these three kinds we do humbly advise several 
courses to be taken. For the first two, of old debts and 
concealments, for that they are in a mode legal (though 
there may be found out some point in law to overthrow 
them), yet it would be a long business by course of law, 
and a matter unusual by act of council, to call them in. 
But that truth moves us chiefly to avoid the questioning 
them at the council-table is because if they shall be taken 
away by the King's act it may let in upon him a flood of 
suitors for recompense ; whereas, if they be taken away at 
the suit of the Parliament, and a law thereupon made, it 
frees the King, and leaves him to give recompense only 
where he shall be pleased to extend grace. Wherefore 
we conceive the most convenient way will be, if some 
grave and discreet gentlemen of the country, such as 
have at least relation to the court, make at fit times some 
modest motions touching the same : That his Majesty 
would be graciously pleased to permit some laws to pass 
(for the time past only), nowhere touching his Majesty's 
legal power to free his subjects from the same, and so his 
Majesty, after due consultation, to give way unto them. 
For the third, we do humbly advise that such of them as 
his Majesty shall give way to have called in may be 
questioned before the council-table, either as granted 
contrary to his Majesty's Book of Bounty, or found since 
to have been abused in the execution, or otherwise by 



SCHEME OF REFOEM. 821 

experience discovered to be burdensome to the country. XIII. 5. 
But herein we shall add this further humble advice, that 
it be not done as matter of preparation to a Parliament, Jaiu 
but that occasion be taken, partly upon revising of the 
Book of Bounty^ and partly upon the fresh example in 
Sir Henry Yelver ton's case of abuse and surreption in 
obtaining of patents, and likewise that it be but as a con- 
tinuance in conformity of the council's former diligence 
and vigilance, which hath already stayed and revoked 
divers patents of like nature, whereof we are ready to 
show the examples. Thus, we conceive, his Majesty shall 
keep his greatness, and somewhat shall be done in Parlia- 
ment and somewhat out of Parliament, as the nature of 
the subject and business requires. We have sent his 
Majesty herewith a schedule of the particulars of these 
three kinds, wherein for the first two we have set down all 
that we could at this time discover. But in the latter we 
have chosen out but some that are most in speech, and 
which do most tend either to the vexation of the common 
people, or the discontenting of the gentlemen and justices, 
the one being the original, the other the representative of 
the Commons. There be many more of like nature, but 
not of like weight, nor so much rumored, which to take 
away now in a blaze will give more scandal that such 
things were granted than cause thanks that they be now 
revoked. The council may be still doing. And because all 
things may appear to his Majesty in the true light, we have 
set down as well the suitors as the grants, and not only 
those in whose names the patent came to our knowledge. 
14* u 



1621. 
Jan. 



322 FRANCIS BACON. 

XIII. 5. For proclamations and commissions, they are tender 
things, and we are willing to meddle with them sparingly; 
for, as for such as do but wait upon patents (wherein his 
Majesty, as we conceived, gave some approbation to have 
them taken away), it is better they fell away by taking 
away the patent itself than otherwise, for a proclamation 
cannot be revoked but by a proclamation, which we would 
avoid. For the Commonwealth Bills which his Majesty 
approved to be put in readiness, and some other things, 
there will be time enough hereafter to give his Majesty 
account, and, amongst them, of the extent of his Majesty's 
pardon, which, if his subjects do their part, as we hope 
they will, we do wish may be more liberal than of later 
times, pardons being the ancient remuneration in Parlia- 
ment. Thus, hoping his Majesty, out of his gracious and 
accustomed benignity, will accept of our faithful endeav- 
ors and supply the rest by his own princely wisdom and 
direction ; and also humbly praying his Majesty, that, 
when he hath himself considered of our humble proposi- 
tions, he will give us leave to impart them all, or as much 
as he shall think fit, to the lords of his council, for the 
better strength of his service, we conclude with our 
prayers for his Majesty's happy preservation, and always 
rest 

Your Lordship's, to be commanded, 

Fr. Verulam, Cane. 
H. Montagu, 
Henry Heath, 
Edw. Coke, 
Ran. Crewe. 



CHARACTER OF NEW PARLIAMENT. 323 

6. The King adopts, or appears to adopt, this scheme, XIII. 6. 
and writs go out for the elections. To Bacon's grief, 

the nation, mad with news from Prague and the Pala- Jan ' 
tin ate, sends up to Westminster four hundred of the 
most violent men who have ever met in the Great Coun- 
cil; yet, with straight, swift meaning to do right, to 
purge abuses in church and state, to launch the army 
and the fleet against an insolent enemy, even a parlia- 
ment of fanatics may be turned to good. James, unhap- 
pily, loses heart. Fitful and feverish in his moods, he 
gets alarmed by the returns, puts off the opening, stoops 
to Gondomar's tales potters once more about a match in 
Spain for young Prince Charles. Gondomar regains his 
power. While Spinola cleanses Cleves and the Palatinate 
with fire, and the Dutch burghers, smitten into warlike 
rage, rush to the help of violated cities, James suspends 
Sir Robert Naunton, Secretary of State, writer of the 
admirable Fragmenta Regalia, from his public functions, 
for merely giving some hope of English aid to the Prot- 
estants of the Rhine ! 

7. When allowed to meet, the knights and squires Jan. 30.. 
come together in a turbulent, almost in a savage mood. 

They listen with bent brows while the poor King maun- 

6. Bacon to Buckingham, Dec. 16, 1620 ; Chamberlain to Carleton, Jan. 20, 
1621, S. P. 0.; Lake to Carleton, Jan. 20, 1621, S. P. 0.; Bacon's Declaration, 
Jan. 16, 1621, S. P. O. 

7. James's Speech on opening Pari., Jan. 80, 1621, S. P. 0.; Note of Sir 
George More's Report, Feb. 6, 1621, S. P. 0. ; List of Sub-Committee on Pa- 
pists, Feb. 5, 1621, S. P. 0.; Chamberlain, Feb. 17, 1621, S. P. 0.; Com. Jour., 
i. 508, 512, 515, 525. 



324 FRANCIS BACON. 

Xin. 7. ders about his love for the Church and his hopes of 
obtaining a Spanish wife for his son, about his dislike 

Jan. 30. f° r * ne doings of the Bohemian Protestants and his wil- 
lingness to spill his own blood in defence of those of 
the Rhine, and when he goes away to his palace they 
proceed, in stern, bright haste, to purge their benches 
from any suspicion of Popish taint. A committee searches 
the vaults. The whole House takes the sacrament in 
public. A second time, and with added solemnity and 
publicity, the members swear the oaths of supremacy. 
Hollis and Britton, Roman Catholics of good family, are 
excluded from Parliament. Shepherd is expelled for 
a jest against the Puritans. A sub-committee revises 
and edges the penal laws. 
Feb. Burgess and knight are now in fearful earnest. No 

more weakness, no more tolerance ! Max and Spinola 
are at our gates. 

8. Coke, returned for Liskeard in Cornwall, offers 
himself as the champion of every fanatical cry, of every 
mad antipathy of the hour. He yells for the blood of 
Papists, for the hoards of monopolists, for the license of 
free speech. His age, his rank, his experience of the 
world, his powers of debate, impose on many of the un- 
tried members, now serving their maiden session in the 
House of Commons. Some take him for a guide ; still 
more accept his aid. 

8. Com. Jour., i. 510, 514, 519, 523 ; Chamberlain to Carleton, Feb. 10, 17, 
1621, S P. 0. ; Locke to Carleton, Feb. 16, 1621, S. P. 0. ; Statutes, iv. 1208. 



1621. 

Feb. 



HIS TOLERANCE UNPOPULAR. 325 

The money bills pass at once. The Chancellor has XIII. 8 
not reckoned on the patriotism of the land in vain. 
Indeed, in their haste to man the fleets, to put a moving 
fort between the coast of Essex and the camps of Calais 
and Ostend, the burgesses vote the King two subsidies 
without a dissenting voice. 

9. James takes this money, not without joy and 
wonder ; but when they ask him to banish recusants 
from London, to put down masses in ambassadors' houses, 
to disarm all the Papists, to prevent priests and Jesuits 
from going abroad, he will not do it. In this resistance 
to a new persecution, his tolerant Chancellor stands at 
his back, and bears the odium of his refusal. Bacon, 
who thinks the penal laws too harsh already, will not 
consent to inflame the country, at such a time, by a new 
proclamation ; the penalties are strong, and in the hands 
of the magistrates ; he sees no need to spur their zeal 
by royal proclamations or the enactment of more savage 
laws. Here is a chance for Coke. Raving for gibbets 
and pillories in a style to quicken the pulse of a Brownist, 
men who are wild with news from Heidelberg or Prague 
believe in his sincerity and partake his heat. To be 
mild now, many good men think, is to be weak. In a 
state of war philosophy and tolerance go to the wall ; 
when guns are pounding in the gates, even justice can 
be only done at the drum-head. 

9. Com. Jour., 518, 523; Speech of a Privy Councillor in the House of Com- 
mons, Feb. 16, 1621, S. P. 0.; Locke to Carleton, Feb. 16, 1621, S. P. 0.; Mur- 
ray to Carleton, Feb. 17, 1621, S. P. 0. 



1621. 

Feb. 



326 FRANCIS BACON. 

XIII. 10. 10. Feeding these fiery humors, Coke gets the ear 
of an active section of the House, who push him on, 
their orator of hate, as in happier times they have made 
his great compeer their advocate of charity and peace. 
Coke pours on them his gall. No one in the House 
yet dreams of attacking persons under cover of a wish 
to expose abuses. Even in the case of Mompesson, 
whose manufacture of gold and silver thread is supposed 
by country gentlemen to have raised the price of beer, 
they declare in their first petition to the King that they 
want measures of redress, not injury to particular' men. 
But a moderation that might end in real good to the 
country is foreign to the nature and designs of Coke. 

11. Sure of the ears of a sect, Coke suggests, as a 
branch of the Grievances, that inquiry should be made 
into abuses in the courts of law, with a view to limit 
the duration and cost of suits, more especially in the 
Chancery and the Court of Wards. Doubts arise on 
this as to whether Parliament has any power over the 
King's courts; when Bacon, though he fears and dis- 
trusts Coke, and complains to the King of his insolence, 
meets the inquiry with open heart. The Commons are 
helping to do his work. Reform of the law, and of the 



10. Request concerning Sir Giles Mompesson, Feb. 27, 1621, S. P. 0.; Locke 
to Carleton, Feb. 24, 1621, S. P. 0. 

11. Chamberlain to Carleton, May 10, 1617, S. P. 0.; Ordinances made by 
the Rt. Hon. Sir Francis Bacon for the better Administration of Justice in the 
Court of Chancery, 1642; Locke to Carleton, Feb. 24, 1621, S. P. 0.; Com. 
Jour., i. 519, 625. 



QUARREL OF SCROPE AND BERKSHIRE. 327 

courts of law, has been his theme for thirty years.Xin.il. 
When he got the Seals, his very first speech in Chancery 
proposed a scheme for removing abuses in fees and suits. feb# 
His rules for conducting business were in themselves 
the best of reform bills. More than all, he has intro- 
duced into that slow and despotic court the substantial 
amendments of patience, courtesy, and speed. Not a 
cause is on the lists unheard. Vices remain ; vices of 
form, of persons, of constitution ; vices too strong for 
a single man, however prompt and powerful, to subdue. 
If the House of Commons have any search to make into 
his court he offers them full leave ; if they have anything 
to say on it he bids them freely speak their mind. With- 
out this leave they could not move one step. 

Blind to the plot against him, the Chancellor knows no 
cause why he should fear their search. 

12. While Coke, under cover of the public good, is 
slowly sliming round his prey, the Chancellor, called by 
his place to decide between the quarrels of two peers, 
has the honorable misfortune to offend in a peculiar 
manner the pride of Lady Buckingham and her obedient 
clan. 

This scheming mother has fixed her eyes on Eliza- 
beth Norreys, daughter of Francis Baron Norreys of 
Bycote, as a wife for her son Kit. Elizabeth is rich, for 
her mother was an heiress, and she is an only child. To 

12. Lords' Jour., iii. 19, 20; Locke to Carleton, Feb. 16, 24, 1621. S. P. 0.; 
Chamberlain to Carleton, Mar. 30, 1621, S. P. 0. 



1621. 
Feb. 



328 FRANCIS BACON. 

Xm. 12. soften Lord Norreys, lie has been created Viscount 
Thane and Earl of Berkshire. But these Yilliers peers, 
these Purbecks and Berkshires, gall the more ancient 
nobles. Berkshire either pushes or strikes Lord Scrope, 
a haughty peer, whose ancestors have been in the House 
of Lords since the days of Edward the First. The 
eleventh Baron of his line complains of this rude and 
upstart earl. Berkshire being in the wrong, Bacon despite 
his known connection with the Villiers people, has the 
courage to send him to the Fleet prison till he repents 
his sally and apologizes to Lord Scrope. 

In a few days Berkshire, on submission to Scrope, 
regains his freedom, and returns to his seat ; making for 
the upright Chancellor one vindictive enemy the more. 

13. Free from the personal malevolence and from the 
virtuous starts which harass Coke, bent on pleasing his 
great patroness and on winning a rich reward, Cranfield 
goes straight and swift to the point ; attacking Bacon, 
Montagu, and Yelverton by name, and proclaiming that 
he does so from a sense of duty to the King. Some one 
speaks of abuses in the Courts of Wards. Cranfield 
springs to his feet, and with brazen brow admits the 
existence of abuses in his court, but impudently declares 
that the corruptions of the Court of Chancery far exceed 
the corruptions in the Court of Wards. 

14. Time has now come for the Yilliers faction to show 

13. Com. Jour., i. 525, 535 ; Locke to Carleton, Mar. 3, 1621, S. P. 0. 



BUCKINGHAM'S TREACHERY. 329 

their game. While Cranfield and Churchill have been XIII. 14. 
hunting the dens of London for accusations against the 
Chancellor, Buckingham has been frequent in his calls Mar 2 
at York House. Bacon is sick and nigh to death. Pains 
rack his head, and gout torments his feet. Yet up to the 
11th of March he continues to meet the Council, sitting 
face to face with Coke and Cranfield, who watch his 
looks and weigh his words with all the vigilance of 
spite. At length the treachery of Buckingham grows 
too plain for even Bacon's eyes to blink. If the House 
of Commons is slow to strike, it must be whipped into 
the mood for framing accusations and demanding vic- 
tims. So Coke brings down a message to the Commons, Mar. ia 
the most extraordinary and the most criminal ever sent 
down by a subservient House of Peers. Coke tells the 
burgesses that the King is pleased with what they have 
done and what they are doing ; that the King advises 
them to strike while the iron is hot, not to rest content 
with shadows, but to demand real sacrifices. He tells 
them, too, that Buckingham has fallen in love with Par- 
liaments ; that he urges them to go on, and gives up 
his brother, a partner with Mompesson, to their wrath. 
No one mistakes the drift and scope of these words. 
Up to the date of this extraordinary and wicked speech, 
no one has breathed a word against Bacon's fame. 
Chancery, not the Chancellor, has been in fault. Now 
the plot breaks. 

14. Council Reg., Mar. 11, 1621; Com. Jour., i. 552, 555; Lords' Jour., iii. 
42, 50. 



330 FRANCIS BACON. 

XIII. 14. Two days after Coke's message, Sir Robert Phillips, 

chairman of the committee, informs the House that two 

Mar. 13. witnesses, Kit Aubrey and Edward Egerton, are ready 

to make complaints against the Lord Chancellor. These 

men come up to the bar and tell their tale. 

Aubrey having a suit in Chancery against Sir William 
Brounker, says he was advised by his counsel to send 
a present of a hundred pounds to the court ; which 
money he paid to Sir George Hastings, who thanked 
him for it in his master's name, and wished him better 
speed in his suit. Egerton, feeling grateful to the Lord 
Chancellor for a service done to him while Bacon was 
Attorney-General, sent him, on his going to live at York 
House, through the hands of Sir George Hastings and 
Sir Richard' Young, a basin and ewer, together with a 
purse of four hundred pounds. 

Each complains that, though he paid his money, he 
took nothing by his gift. 

15. Such charges against the Lord Chancellor are in 
the last degree frivolous. Fees and gifts like Aubrey's 
and Egerton's are common as sun and rain. A barris- 
ter or a judge, set apart from the world, with no sal- 
ary from the State, receives, as a rector or a prelate 
might receive in his day of furnishing or feasting, aid 
from the public and from his friends. Indeed, the 

15. Goodman's Memoirs, i. 295-6; A Selection of the Proceedings of the 
House of Commons against the Lord Verulam, Lord Chancellor of England, 
Mar. 15, 17, 19, 1621; Com. Jour., i. 552-563. 



CHARGES OF BRIBERY. 331 

higher clergy growl that the great lawyers get a larger xm. 15. 
share of this help in need than the zealous servants of 
God. Bishop Goodman has a curious paragraph in March 
point : — 

" I did once intend," he says, " to have built a church ; 
and a lawyer in my neighborhood did intend to build 
himself a fair house, as afterward he did. One sent 
unto him to desire him to accept from him all his tim- 
ber ; another sent unto him to desire him that he might 
supply him with all the iron that he spent about his 
house. These men had great woods and iron-mills of 
their own. The country desired him to accept of their 
carriage. What reason had this man not to build ? 
Truly I think he paid very little but the workmen's 
wages. Whereas, on the contrary, in the building of 
my church, where it was so necesssary, for without the 
church they had not God's service, and no church was 
near them for nearly four or five miles, truly I could 
not get the contribution of one farthing. Lord ! how 
are the times altered ! It was not so when St. Paul's 
Church in London and other cathedrals were built. 
God's will be done ! " 

When Bacon got the Seals his friends and admirers 
clothed York House for him with plate, arras, furniture, 
and pictures ; some sending books, some money, some 
cups of silver and gold. In the crowd of presents came 
Egerton's ewer and purse ; came as an expression of 
gratitude and friendship. No reference was made when 
they were given to any future act; nor had the Chan- 



332 FRANCIS BACON. 

xni. 15. cellor any knowledge of Egerton's having a suit in 
court. These facts are stated in the House by Sir Rich- 

1621. 
March. ard Young. 

In Aubrey's case it is clear that the fee was paid in the 
usual way ; openly paid ; paid by advice of his own coun- 
sel ; paid to the proper officer of the court. It is no less 
clear that the Lord Chancellor could have no special per- 
sonal knowledge of this payment. He does not keep the 
accounts of his court. Hastings tells the House of Com- 
mons that though he paid in Aubrey's money he never 
mentioned to the Chancellor Aubrey's name. The truth 
of this story is confirmed in a singular way. When 
Bacon, on his sick couch, first hears of this payment, by 
Aubrey of a hundred pounds, he pronounces it a lie, and 
declares that he shall deny it on his honor before the 
world. He is not aware that it was paid to his clerk. 

16. Such charges are too flimsy to stand alone. Ex- 
cept the tools of Coke, of Cranfield, and of Buckingham, 
men who have received their cue, and the herd who, 
without opinions of their own, are ever to be found on 
the stronger side, no one in the House of Commons pre- 
tends to believe that such facts establish a case against 
the Lord Chancellor, fit to be sent before the House of 
Lords. Heneage Finch, Recorder of London, next to 
Coke himself the most learned jurist in the house, de- 
clares that the evidence brought in support of the accusa- 
tion frees the Lord Chancellor from blame. 

16. A Collection of the Proceedings, &c, Mar. 17, 1621. 



PROGRESS OF THE PLOT. 333 

17. Churchill now comes up. Meautys protests that a XILT. 17. 
dismissed servant, an extortioner, a forger, with no hope 
of escaping pillories and jails except by lies against the Mar< 20> 
Chancellor, shall not be heard against his lord. But 
Coke and Phillips get him sent, together with a wretch 
named Keeling, a low solicitor, a partner in Churchill's 
villanies, to the committee, which comprises the Chancel- 
lor's most eager foes. In secret, and without cross-exam- 
ination, Churchill and Keeling tell their tales, and the 
hostile members of the committee frame their grand in- 
dictment, charging Bacon with bribery and fraud. 

The cases on which they count are in number twenty- 
two. It is amazing they should be no more. In his four 
years of Chancery business, Bacon has pronounced about 
seven thousand verdicts ; each verdict must have hurt 
some man in fame or purse ; must, by a law of nature, 
have seemed to the losing man unjust. Does any one 
love the judge who has pronounced against him ? Would 
the most upright judge feel easy on having to put his 
honor or estate at the mercy of a jury, each of whom 
had been mulcted in his court ? Yet out of these seven 
thousand sufferers, the skill of Coke, and the roguery of 
Churchill can only frame an accusation of twenty-two 
particulars, not one of them to the point ! 

18. At first the Chancellor only smiles. Charges 

17. A Collection of th-e Proceedings, &c, Mar. 20, 21, 1621; Com. Jour., i. 
564. 

IS. Council Reg., Dec. 30, 1617, Mar. 17, 27, 1618, June 19, 1619, Jan. 20, 
1620 ; Bacon to Buckingham, in Montagu, 33. 



334 FKANCIS BACON. 

XIIL 18. against the court over which he sits he expects to hear, 
and will be glad to consider ; charges against himself 
iar. 20. P ersona Hy ne knows must be malignant, and he sup- 
poses must be vain. The Council guards the high place 
he fills with as much care as it guards the Crown. 
The fate of Lord Clifford and Lady Blount is before 
the slanderer's eye ; and a word from the King or 
from Buckingham would send Churchill to be whipped 
through Cheap and fettered in the Clink. When he 
finds the case go on, he expresses to Buckingham his 
indignation at the course of Coke : " Job himself, or 
whoever was the justest judge," he writes, " by such 
hunting of matters against him as hath been used 
against me, may for a time seem foul. If this is to 
be a Chancellor, I think if the Great Seal lay upon 
Hounslow Heath, nobody would take it up." But he 
is not alarmed. " I know I have clean hands and a 
clean heart." 

19. As the case proceeds, — as Ley, and Coke, and 
Cranfield, all the tools of Lady Buckingham, take part 
in it, — he begins at length to perceive the bearing of 
the charge and the purpose of his enemies. The facts 
of the accusation are nothing, the fact of it is much. 
As he lies sick at York House, or at Gorhambury, hear- 
ing through his friend Meautys of the moil and worry 
about him in the House of Commons, he jots on loose 
scraps of paper at his side his answers and remarks. 

19. Bacon Memoranda, Lambeth MSS. 936, foL 146. 



HIS DECLARATION OF INNOCENCE. 335 

These scraps of paper are at Lambeth Palace. Their XHL 19. 
contents are embodied in letters to Buckingham, to the 
House of Lords, and to the King : yet they possess an March 
original and abiding interest in their first rude drafts ; 
a stamp of honesty and sincerity which the eye cannot 
help but see or the heart but feel. On one of these 
sheets he writes : — 

" There be three degrees or cases, as I conceive, of 
gifts or rewards given to a judge. 

"The first is, — of bargain, contractor promise of 
reward, pendente lite. And this is properly called ve- 
nalis sententise, or baratria, or corruptelae munerum. 
And of this my heart tells me I am innocent ; that I 
had no bribe or reward in my eye or thought when I 
pronounced any sentence or order. 

" The second is, — a neglect in the judge to inform 
himself whether the cause be fully at an end or no 
what time he receives the gift, but takes it upon the 
credit of the party that all is done, or otherwise omits 
to inquire. 

"And the third is, — when it is received, sine fraude, 
after the cause is ended ; which, it seems, by the opin- 
ions of the civilians, is no offence. " 

Only the first of these three cases, a contract to de- 
feat justice for a personal gain, implies moral guilt or 
invites legal censure. 

Bacon adds : — 

" ]?or the first, I take myself to be as innocent as 
any babe born on St. Innocent's day in my heart. 



336 FKANCIS BACON. 

XIII. 19. " For the second, I doubt in some particulars I may 
be faulty. 

" And for the last, I conceive it to be no fault." 



1621. 

March. 



20. The evidence produced against him, as Heneage 
Finch has told the House of Commons, proves his case 
and frees him from blame. Of the twenty-two charges 
of corruption, three are debts, — Compton's, Peacock's, 
and Vanlore's : two of these, Compton's and Yanlore's, 
debts on bond and interest. Any man who borrows 
money may be as justly charged with taking bribes. 
One case, that of the London Companies, is an arbitra- 
tion, not a suit in law. Even Cranfield, though bred in 
the city, cannot call their fee a bribe. Smith wick's gift, 
being found irregular, has been sent back. Thirteen 
cases — those of Young, Wroth, Hody, Barker, Monk, 
Trevor, Scott, Fisher, Lenthal, Dunch, Montagu, Rus- 
well, and the Frenchmen — are of daily practice in every 
court of law. They fall under Bacon's third list, com- 
mon fees, paid in the usual way, paid after judgment 
has been given. Kennedy's present of a cabinet for 
York House has never been accepted, the Chancellor 
hearing that the artisan who made it has not been paid. 
Reynell, an old neighbor and friend, gave him two hun- 
dred pounds towards furnishing York House, and sent 
him a ring on New Year's day. Everybody gives rings, 
everybody takes rings, on a New Year's day. The gift 

20. A Collection of the Proceedings, &c, Mar. 20, 21, 1621; Com. Jour., 
i. 563, 578. 



EVIDENCE AGAINST HIM. 337 

of five hundred pounds from Sir Ralph Hornsby was XIII. 20. 
made after a judgment, though, as afterwards appeared, 
while a second, much inferior cause, was still in hearing. March 
The gift was openly made, not to the Chancellor, but 
to the officer of his court. The last case is that of Lady 
Wharton ; the only one that presents an unusual feature. 
Lady Wharton, it seems, brought her presents to the 
Chancellor herself ; yet even her gifts were openly made, 
in the presence of the proper officer and his clerk. 
Churchill admits being present in the room when Lady 
Wharton left her purse ; Gardner, Keeling's clerk, asserts 
that he was present when she brought the two hundred 
pounds. Even Coke is staggered by proofs which prove 
so much ; for who in his senses can suppose that the 
Lord Chancellor would have done an act known to be 
illegal and immoral in the company of a registrar and 
a clerk ? 

It is clear that a thing which Bacon did under the 
eyes of Gardner and Churchill must have been in his 
mind customary and right. 

It is no less clear that if Bacon had done wrong, 
knowing it to be wrong, he would never have braved 
exposure of his fraud by turning Churchill into the 
streets. 

Thus after the most rigorous and vindictive scrutiny 
into his official acts, and into the official acts of his ser- 
vants, not a single fee or remembrance traced to the 
Chancellor can, by any fair construction, be called a 
bribe. Not one appears to have been given on a promise ; 
15 v 



338 FRANCIS BACON. 

XIII. 20. not one appears to have been given in secret; not one 
is alleged to have corrupted justice. 



1621. 

March. 



21. Very few knights or burgesses take part in the 
debate : on one side Cranfield, Coke, and Phillips ; on the 
other side Sackville, Meautys, and Heneage Finch, make 
nearly all the list. This charge against Bacon is re- 
garded by citizens and country gentlemen as a mere 
theme for lawyers, — a charge of technical corruption 
more than of moral guilt. They may very well stand 
aloof when Coke and Finch, the two most eminent 
lawyers in the House, express on it the most diverse 
views. Coke construes every fee into a bribe ; Finch 
denies that any fee can be called a bribe unless it can 
be shown to have been taken as part of a contract to 
pervert justice. Finch does not admit of Bacon's three 
distinctions, — he only knows of fees and bribes. A fee 
paid at an improper time is not a bribe ; for how, he 
asks, can a judge retain in his recollection the name of 
every suitor in his court ? The House consents to let 
the case go up to the Lords, though as an inquiry, not 
as an impeachment. If they wish the system of Fees 
amended, as they wish that of Patents, of Protections, 
of Pardons, of Personal Service, or of Wards and Liveries 
amended, they do not load the Chancellor with a personal 
charge. Otherwise Coke. They want to cleanse the 
court ; he to destroy the judge. They see a grievance 
in the Chancery, as they see one in the Rolls, the Wards, 

21. Com. Jour., i. 564-67; Proceedings, &c, Mar. 20, 21, 1621. 



INQUIRY IN THE LOEDS. 339 

and the King's Bench ; he finds the most noxious griev- XIQ.21. 
ance in th 
Great Seal. 



ance in the Lord Viscount St. Albans, holder of the 



22. To drag the House of Lords on the way down 
which they have thus far lured the House of Commons, 
the gang of conspirators procure from James a com- 
mission for Sir James Ley to execute the office of Lord 
Chancellor. Though not a peer, such a commission 
will make Ley the leader and spokesman of the peers. 
Seeing what means are used against him, Bacon is 
warned by a friend to look about him. He calmly an- 
swers, " I look, above." 

23. He knows now that his ruin is meant, — that the 
peers who are to try him will pronounce as Bucking- 
ham points. Two or three learned, independent men 
may protest by their votes or absence against these 
scandalous proceedings ; the majority, who wish to 
dance at Whitehall, — to enjoy the favorite's smiles 
and partake the gifts of his master, — will have to 
speak and act under the eyes of Prince Charles, who 
is not so much Buckingham's partisan as his slave. It 
is with Ley and Williams not a question of Bacon's 
guilt so much as of his place. But his own courtesy 
and generosity blind him to the vile motives of his 
persecutors. In the loose sheets a,t his bedside, and 
afterwards in letters to the King, he writes : — 

22. Loi-ds' Jour., iii. 51. 

23. Bacon to James, Mar. 25, 1621; Montagu, 999. 



1621. 

March 



1621. 

March 



340 FRANCIS BACON. 

XIII. 23. " When I enter into myself, I find not the materials of 
such a tempest as is now come upon me. I have been 
never author of any immoderate counsel, but always 
desired to have things carried suavibus modis. I have 
been no avaricious oppressor of the people. I have been 
no haughty, intolerable, or hateful man in my conver- 
sation or carriage. I have inherited no hatred from my 
father ; but am a good patriot born. Whence should 
this be ? " 

That eye, so quick to see the power of truth, the 
beauty of nature, cannot see that it is crime enough 
that he has vexed Lady Buckingham by his independ- 
ence, and that Williams wants his place. 

Yet, knowing his own heart, he can say with honest 
pride : — 

" I praise God for it, I never took penny for any bene- 
fice or ecclesiastical living. 

" I never took penny for releasing anything I stopped 
at the Seal. 

" I never took penny for any commission, or tilings of 
that nature. 

"I never shared with any reward for any second or 
inferior profit." 

Mar. 19. 24. Ley presides over the peers. On the House re- 
solving themselves into committee, a preliminary fight 
takes place, which shows the strength of this Villiers 
gang. When the House is in committee, it is the rule 

24. Lords' Jour., iii. 55; Lambeth MSS. 936, fol. 146. 



URGED BY THE KING TO SUBMIT. 341 

that the Lord Chancellor shall move to his place, and sit XIII. 24. 
as a simple peer. Ley, therefore, drops from the wool- 
sack to the back benches, where he must sit, while the March _ 
Lords are in committee, as a mere assistant, without a 
vote. His friends propose that he shall resume the chair, 
even while the House is in committee ; and after a strong 
opposition, though the Prince and Buckingham are pres- 
ent to support their friends, these last carry their pro- 
posal, and Ley resumes the chair. This vote decides 
Bacon's fate. 

In a private interview James now urges the Chancellor 
to trust in him ; to offer no defence ; to submit himself to 
the peers ; to trust his honor and his safety to the Crown. 
It is only too easy to divine the reasons which weigh with 
Bacon to intrust his fortunes to the King. He is sick. 
He is surrounded by enemies. No man has power to help 
him, save the sovereign. He is weary of greatness. Age 
is approaching. In his illness he has learned to think 
more of heaven and less of the world. His nobler tasks 
are incomplete. He has the Seals, and the delights of 
power begin to pall. To resist the King's advice is to 
provoke the fate of Yelverton, still an obstinate prisoner 
in the Tower. Nor can he say that these complaints 
against the courts of law, against the Court of Chancery, 
are untimely or unjust. So far as they attack the court, 
and not the judge, they are in the spirit of all his writings 
and of all his votes. In his soul, he can find no fault 
with the House of Commons, though the accidents of 
time and the machinations of powerful enemies have 



342 FRANCIS BACON, 

XIII. 24. made him, the Reformer, a sacrifice to a false cry for 

reform. 
1621. 

April. 28. 25. In answer to a statement sent to him from the 
Lords, he confesses, as the King has begged him to con- 
fess, to the receipt of the several fees and gifts, and to a 
trust in the servants of his court, often most unwise. 
Most of the cases fall under his third division ; two or 
three under his second ; none under his first. Beyond 
this point his confession and submission do not run. If 
he takes to himself some share of blame, he takes to him- 
self no share of guilt. He pleads guilty to carelessness, 
not to crime. But he points out, too, that all the irregu- 
larities found in his court occurred when he was new in 
office, strange to his clerks and registrars, overwhelmed 
with arrears of work. The very last of them is two years 
old. For the latter half of his reign as Chancellor, the 
vindictive inquisition of his enemies, aided by the treach- 
ery of his servants, has not been able to detect in his 
administration of justice a fault, much less a crime. 

May 3. 26. The peers condemn. The Villiers faction move 
to suspend during life his titles of nobility. Abbott 
and the bench of bishops oppose this motion. Fine, 
imprisonment, loss of office, are the forms of a political 
sentence ; degradation from nobility is a moral censure. 
One is only loss of power, the other is loss of honor. A 

25. Lords' Jour., iii. 99, 100. 

26. Chamberlain to Carleton, May 2, 5, 1621, S. P. 0. ; Lords' Jour., iii. 105. 



LEY DELIVERS SENTENCE. 343 

majority of two defeats this scheme of adding infamy to xm. 26. 
punishment. The second motion passes. Ley has the 
satisfaction of declaring to his partisans in the House of May3 
Peers that the greatest man who ever sat upon its benches 
is ignominiously expelled, deprived of the Seals, fined 
forty thousand pounds, and cast into the Tower. 



344 FRANCIS BACON. 



CHAPTER XIV 



AFTER SENTENCE 



XIV. 1. 1. Bacon makes no complaint. He feels that he is 
— made a sacrifice, an innocent sacrifice, for what he hopes 
' may turn out to be the public good. The court is cor- 
rupt, though the judge is pure. In a few brave words he 
states the case : "I was the justest judge that was in 
England these fifty years, but it was the justest censure 
that was in Parliament these two hundred years." 

2. With the sentence on Lord St. Albans ends the 
ministerial passion for reform. No further search is 
made into Chancery iniquities, nor does the House re- 
member to proceed with its inquiry into the evil prac- 
tices of the King's Bench and the Court of Wards. The 
Crown makes a feeble effort of investigation, but only, 
like the House of Commons, to let the question drop. 
If the new Chancellor names a commission to report 
on Fees, nothing comes of their report. All that is 
irregular in the mode of conducting legal business grows 



1. Apophthegms, Spedding's Works of Bacon, vii. 179. 

2. Statutes of the Realm, iv. 1208; Welden, 130; King's Proclamation, July 
10, 1621 ; Proposals concerning the Chancery, 1650. 



1621. 

May. 



DIVISION OF SPOILS. 345 

to be more irregular. Instead of being a court without XIV. 2. 
arrears, it is soon blocked up with clients. The new men 
invent new methods of extortion. 

With the fall of the Reformer ends the immediate pros- 
pect of reform. The very topic is adjourned to the times 
of Naseby and Dunbar. 

3. All the agents of this memorable persecution get July, 
their share of spoil, except the man to whose invention 
and persistence its success is due. Coke is in disgrace ; 
for the match between his daughter and Sir John Yilliers, 
though crowned with a peerage, has turned out a dismal 
work. Ley, if he misses the Seals, which Lady Bucking- 
ham reserves for the one nearer and dearer, obtains a wife, 
with the prospect of promotion and a peerage, for which 
indeed he has not long to wait. Churchill goes back to 
the trust which he so shamefully abused. Williams steps 
into the Privy Council and receives the Seals. " I should 
have known my successor," says Bacon, on receiving this 
extraordinary news. Some of the great peers demur 
to the nomination of such a fellow as Williams to the 
presidency of their lordships' house ; and the King only 
quells this clamor of the Howards and De Yeres by 
threatening them, if they object to Williams, with the 
nomination of Richard Neile. To give dignity to Lady 
Buckingham's friend, he is named successor to Dr. Moun- 

3. Chamberlain to Carleton, June 23, July 14, Oct. 13, Nov. 10, 1621, S. P. 0. ; 
Locke to Carleton, Sept. 29, 1621, S. P. 0.; Lords' Jour., iii. 42, 81; Paul to 
Buckingham, July 12, 1621, S. P. 0.; Sign Manuals, xii. No. 66; Grant Book, 
309 ; Doquet, Sept. 12, 1622. 

15* 



346 FRANCIS BACON. 

XIV. 3. tain in the see of Lincoln. Cranfield's merits demand 
and receive no less magnificent a prize. 
July> ' Some of the Yilliers gang proposed to attack Mon- 
tagu, the Lord Treasurer, while their friends were push- 
ing the charge against Bacon. Coke hinted a fault be- 
fore the House of Peers, while Sir George Paul, one of 
Lady Buckingham's crew, whose zeal had been inflamed 
by the gift of a lucrative office under Ley, petitioned the 
House of Commons against him. But there was danger 
in attempting too much ; and a word from Buckingham 
put a stop to the indiscreet initiative of Paul, his new 
clerk of the King's Bench. The attack is but deferred. 
When Bacon is in the Tower, Cranfield, now a baron, 
opens his siege against the Treasury. Montagu is rich 
and timid, and Cranfield offers him no choice but that of 
a cutthroat on Stamford Hill, — Your office or your life ! 
Where Bacon has gone down Montagu cannot hope to 
stand. If he will allow himself to be robbed of a post 
which has cost him twenty thousand pounds, and of 
places about it which have cost his kinsmen and servants 
twenty thousand pounds more, the victorious party prom- 
ise to secure him the undisturbed enjoyment of his peer- 

sept. 29. age, and to cover the shame of his fall by reviving for 
him the old office of President of the Council. Mon- 
tagu succumbs. Cranfield gets the White Staff, and, 
after the birth of a son, the Earldom of Middlesex. 

March 4* These ends of the conspiracy attained, the prose- 

4. Meautys to Bacon, Mar. 3, 1622, Lambeth MSS. 936; Spedding's Note, 
i. 9; Rushworth's Historical Collections, i. 31. 



HIS FINE KEMITTED. 347 

cution of Bacon, the heat of the Government for reform, XIV. 4 
dies off. Buckingham has no implacable resentment 

1622. 

against the great Chancellor ; he only wanted the Mace March 
and Seals. When he has got these baubles into the 
hands of Williams, he continues to express, and probably 
to feel, the warmest affection for Bacon's person, the 
most unbounded admiration for his parts. Indeed, he 
wishes to be thought the friend of Lord St. Albans, as 
Greville was the friend of Sir Philip Sydney. Meautys, 
the faithful henchman, in his notes to his master, 
hints at something savoring of an intrigue to pro- 
cure from him confessions of friendship and obliga- 
tion to the powerful favorite. Bacon's situation grows 
less painful ; his fine is remitted, his freedom restored. 
An attempt to overthrow some of his judgments fails. 
Of the thousands of decisions pronounced by him in 
the Court of Chancery not one is reversed. 

5. Among his books and his experiments, with his 
horse and his game of bowls, he soon in the country air 
recovers his health, and with his health his spirits and 
his wit. He enriches the Essays with a thousand ex- 
quisite touches. When the Jew, Gondomar, recalled 
to Spain by an order from the King, sends to wish Bacon 
a good Easter, the wit replies, " Tell the Count I return 
him the compliment and wish him a good Passover." 
Montagu comes to Gorhambury to complain how ill he 

5. Apophthegms, in Spedding's Bacon, vii. 181 ; Bacon to James, Mar. 25, 1623 ; 
Lambeth MSS. 936 ; Bacon to Conway, Mar. 25, 1623, S. P. 0. 



348 FRANCIS BACON. 

XIV. 5. has been used by the Villiers faction ; " Why, my Lord," 
says Bacon, " they have made me an example and you 

March. a President." Poor in everything but his good spirits 
and his capacity for work, he toils at his History of 
Henry the Seventh, at the new edition of his Advance- 
ment of Learning, at his Advertisement touching a Holy 
1623. War. These writings, and the works which have gone 
before them, extend his fame throughout Europe. But 
his debts weigh on him. He is anxious for work, even 
for work of the humblest kind. In 1623 Thomas Mur- 
ray, secretary to Prince Charles, and Provost of Eton, 
falls sick and is like to die. Bacon offers himself as a 
candidate. Sir William Beecher, clerk of the Privy 
Council, a creature of Yilliers, and Sir Henry Wotton, 
poet, wit, ambassador, are his opponents. Beecher has 
a promise from Buckingham of the succession to Mur- 
ray ; Buckingham is away in Spain with the Prince of 
Wales, fanning his face at bull-fights, leering at Castilian 
dames. Sir Edward Conway, Secretary of State, is now 
the immediate influence near the King ; and Bacon, 
who comes back to London, to his old lodgings in Gray's 
Inn, writes to solicit his good-will: — 

Bacon to Conway. 

Gray's Inn, 25th of March, 1623. 

Good Mr. Secretary, — 
When you did me the honor and favor to visit me 
you did not only in general terms express your love 
unto me, but as a real friend asked me whether I had 



SEEKS PROVOSTSHIP OF ETON. 349 

any particular occasion wherein I might make use of XIV. 5. 

you. At that time I had none ; now there is one fallen. 

1623. 
It is that Mr. Thomas Murray, Provost of Eton (whom 

I love very well), is like to die. It were a pretty cell 
for my fortune. The college and school I do not doubt 
but I shall make to nourish. His Majesty, when I 
waited on him, took notice of my wants, and said to me 
that as he was a king he would have care of me. This 
is a thing somebody must have, and costs his Majesty 
nothing. I have written two or three words to his Ma- 
jesty, which I would pray you to deliver. I have not 
expressed this particular to his Majesty, but referred it 
to your relation. My most noble friend the Marquis 
is now absent. Next to him I could not think of a 
better address than to yourself, as one likest to put on 
his affections. 

I rest your very affectionate friend, 

Francis St. Albans. 

Conway supports the suit. 

6. James allows of Bacon's great claims. He will 
think of it ; he even hopes to arrange it ; satisfying 
Beecher with another place. But Beecher is Bucking- 
ham's creature ; Buckingham is away ; till he comes 
back nothing can be done. Conway's answer is in the 
State Paper Office ; its spirit may be guessed from the 
following note of Bacon in reply to it : — 

6. Bacon to Conway, Mar. 29, 1623, S. P. 0. ; Do., Mar. 31, 1623, Lambeth 
MSS. 936. 



350 FRANCIS BACON. 

Bacon to Conway. 

Gray's Inn, 29th of March, 1623. 

Good Mr. Secretary, — 
I am much comforted by your last letter, wherein I 
find that his Majesty of his great goodness vouchsafeth 
to have a care of me, a man out of sight and out of use, 
but yet his (as the Scripture sayeth, " God knows those 
that are his "). In particular, I am very much bounden 
to his Majesty, and I pray (Sir) thank his Majesty most 
humbly for it, that, notwithstanding the former design- 
ment of Sir A. Beecher, his Majesty (as you write) is 
not out of hope in due time to accommodate me of this 
cell and to satisfy that gentleman otherwise. Many con- 
ditions (no doubt) may be as good for him, and his years 
may expect them. But there will hardly fall (especially 
in the spent hour-glass of such a life as mine) anything 
so fit for me, being a retreat to a place of study so near 
London, and where (if I sell my house at Gorhambury, 
as I purpose to do, to put myself into some convenient 
plenty), I may be accommodate of a dwelling for the 
summer-time. And, therefore, good Mr. Secretary, fur- 
ther this his Majesty's good intention by all means if 
the place fall. For yourself you have obliged me much ; 
I will endeavor to deserve it. At best nobleness is never 
lost, but rewarded in itself. My Lord Marquis I know 
will thank you. I was looking over some short papers 
of mine touching usury, how to grind the teeth of it, 
and yet to make it grind to his Majesty's mill in good 



1623. 



APPLIES AGAIN FOE PKOVOSTSHIP. 351 

sort, without discontent or perturbation : if you think XIV. 6. 
good I will perfect it, as I send it to his Majesty as some 
fruits of my leisure. But yet I would not have it come 
as from me, not from any tenderness in the thing, but 
because I know well in the courts of princes it is usual 
non res, sed displicet auctor. — God keep you. 
I rest your very affectionate friend, much obliged, 

Fr. St. Albans. 

Two days later he writes again. What a mournful, yet 
what a manful tone ! He has sold York House, the place 
of his birth ; he must now sell Grorhambury, the scene 
of his happiest hours and most splendid toils. Yet how 
inspiring, in the depths of sorrow, to see the great man 
bear his burden bravely : no false pride ; no arrogant 
remembrance of the Mace, the Seals, the Privy Council, 
the Royal table ; only a simple hope of finding in his old 
age a sphere of duty in which he can win bread by honest 
work ! 

7. He writes to the King : — 

Bacon to James. Max. 

IT MAY PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, — 

Now that my friend is absent (for so I may call him 
still, since your Majesty, when I waited on you, told me 

7. Bacon to James, Mar. 29, 1623, S. P. 0. ; Bacon to Conway, April 7, 1623, 
S. P. 0. 



352 FRANCIS BACON. 

XIV. 7. that fortune made no difference) your Majesty remaineth 

to me kins; and master, and friend and all. Your Beads- 
1623. ° ' 

Mar. 29. man, therefore, addresseth himself to your Majesty for a 

cell to retire unto. The particular I have expressed to 

my very hon. friend, Mr. Sec. Conway. This help (which 

costs your Majesty nothing) may reserve me to do your 

Majesty service, without being chargeable unto you, for 

I will never deny but my desire to serve your Majesty is 

of the nature of the heart, that will be ultimum moriens 

with me. God preserve your Majesty, and send you a 

good return of your treasure abroad, which passeth your 

Majesty's Indian fleet. 

Your most humble and devoted servant, 

Francis St. Albans. 

Murray grows daily worse. Bacon writes again to 
Conway : — 



April. 7. Bacon to Conway. 

Gray's Inn, 7th of April, 1623. 

Good Mr. Secretary, — 
I received right now an advertisement from a friend of 
mine who is like to know it, that Mr. Murray is very ill 
(and that, so are the words of his letter) not only his 
days but his hours are numbered. You have put my 
business into a good way, and (to tell you true) my heart 
is much upon this place, as fit for me, and where I may 
do good. Therefore, Sir, I pray you have a special eye 



DISAPPOINTED OF PROVOSTSHIP. 353 

to it, and I shall ever acknowledge it to you in the best XIV. 7. 
fashion that I can. Resting your very affectionate friend, 

Fr. St. Albans. 



1623. 



8. Murray dies Time passes on. Buckingham still sept, 
away, the King can form no resolution. Six months later 
the place is still vacant. Bacon writes again : — 

Bacon to Conway. 

Gray's Inn, this 4th day of September, 1623. 

Good Mr. Secretary, — 

Let me, now his Majesty is in sight of Eton, make my 
most humble claim to his Majesty's gracious promise by 
you signified, which, as I understand it, was, that if Mr. 
Beecher, who had a promise upon my Lord of Bucking- 
ham's score, might otherwise be satisfied (which his 
Majesty would endeavor), I should have my desire. Mis- 
take me not, as if I expected this should be done and 
perfected till my noble, true friend comes back. But I 
pray refresh it only in his Majesty's memory. It were 
strange if I should not do as much good to the College as 
another, be it square cap or round. 

I always rest your affectionate friend and servant, 

St. Albans. 

Buckingham is adverse to his suit. In small things, 1624. 
as in great things, though he professes a boundless ad- 

8. Bacon to Conway, Sept. 4, 1623, S. P. 0.; Sign Man., xvi., No. 42. 

W 



354 FRANCIS BACON. 

XIV. 8. miration for Bacon's parts, he chooses to have about 
~ him men more pliable and more frail. Sir William 
Beecher, a gentleman unfit for such a post as Murray's, 
takes a promise of 2,500Z. in lieu of the succession ; but 
Sir Henry Wotton, an honorable man and a good scholar, 
though of far less various learning and far less exalted 
virtue than Lord St. Albans, gets the Provostship of 
Eton. 

9. It is the last time he troubles Buckingham or 
James. Henceforth he devotes himself to his experi- 
ments and his books ; to the collections for the Sylva 
Sylvarum ; to his Historia Vitae et Mortis ; to the con- 
struction of his new Atlantis ; to the enlargement of 
his Essays. He is a greater man now in his study than 
when the Mace was borne before him, and the Lord 
Treasurer and Secretary of State rode on his right hand 
and on his left. He lives in seclusion ; but his writ 
ings fill the whole world with his fame. 

10. From the seclusion of Gorhambury or Gray's Inn 
he watches the men who have ruined his fortune and 
stained his name fall one by one. Before their year of 
triumph ran out, Coke's intolerable arrogance plunged 
him into the Tower, from which he escaped, after eight 
months' imprisonment, to be permanently degraded from 

10. Council Reg., Dec. 27, 1621, Aug. 6, 1622; Chamberlain to Carleton, Aug. 
18, Dec. 1, 1621, June 8, 1622, S. P. 0.; James's Reply to the Commons, Dec. 
11, 1621, S. P. 0.; Locke to Carleton, Jan. 1, 1622, S. P. 0.; Buckingham to 
Crew, Feb. 11, 1625, S^ P. 0. 



FALL OF HIS ENEMIES. 355 

the Privy Council, banished from the court, and con- XIV. 10. 
fined to his dismal ruin of a house at Stoke. The sale 
of Frances Coke to Viscount Purbeck is a dismal fail- 
ure. She makes the man to whom she was sold per- 
fectly miserable ; quitting his house for days and nights ; 
braving the public streets in male attire ; falling in guilty 
love with Sir Kobert Howard ; shocking even the brazen 
sinners of St. James's by the excessive profligacy of her 
life. Purbeck steals abroad to hide his shame. At last 
he goes raving mad. In less than three years from the 
day of that gorgeous feast as court, Buckingham would 
have given his marquisate to untie the knot. All that 
Bacon foresaw has come to pass. Sir Robert Howard, 
a son of that Earl of Suffolk whom Buckingham broke 
and disgraced, pursues his pleasure and his revenge in 
the amour with Lady Purbeck, willing to vindicate by 
his sword the injury done by his lawless love. Buck- 
ingham, who lacks courage either to defend his family 
honor or to renew the scandalous scene of the Essex 
divorce, in place of crossing blades with Howard in Ma- 
rylebone Park proceeds against his sister-in-law for in- 
continence, and procures from the Ecclesiastical Court 
a sentence condemning her to stand in a penitential 
white sheet at the door of the Savoy church. It is 
easier to condemn than to catch the nimble profligate, 
an accomplished player at hide and seek. Once the 
pursuivants catch a glimpse of her near an ambassador's 
house ; they chase ; she slips from her coach, runs 
through the gates, changes clothes with a page, who 



1624. 



356 FRANCIS BACON. 

XIV. 10. minces like a lady into her seat, and tears down the 
Strand with Buckingham's men at the wheels. She 
trips laughingly away, while the officers of justice fol- 
low the coach and seize the boy. 

Ma y- 11. The very next Parliament which meets in West- 
minster strikes down two of his foes. Three years after 
his return to that trust he so grossly abused, Churchill 
comes before the House of Commons as a culprit. He 
has been at his tricks again, and is now solemnly con- 
victed of forgery and fraud. Two months after Church- 
ill's condemnation Cranfield is in turn assailed. Charges 
of taking bribes from the farmers of customs, of fraudu- 
lent dealing with the royal debts, of robbing the magazine 
of arms, are proved against him ; when, abandoned by 
his powerful friends, he is sentenced by the House of 
Commons to public infamy, to loss of office, to imprison- 
ment in the Tower, to a restitution ary fine of two hun- 
dred thousand pounds ! " In future ages," says a wise 
observer of events, " men will wonder how my Lord St. 
Albans could have fallen, how my Lord of Middlesex 
could have risen." 

1625. 12. The most subtle of his enemies falls the last. 
not. l. jyj- er Yi\s promotion to the Seals and mitre, Williams, 

11. Com. Jour., i. 591, 766; Nicholas to Nicholas, Mar. 17, 1624, S. P. 0.; 
Chichester to Carleton, May 12, 1624, S. P. 0. ; Locke to Carleton, May 13, 
1624, S. P. 0. 

12. Suckling to Buckingham, Oct. 24, 1625, S. P. 0.; Williams to Goring, 
Oct 30, 1625, S. P. 0. 



FALL OF HIS ENEMIES. 357 

silly enough to dream that he could stand alone, began XTV. 12. 
to neglect Lady Buckingham for younger and less exact- 
ing women. Murmurs now rise against him ; slowly at Noy L 
first, but gathering strength as his ingratitude, his ar- 
rogance, and his cupidity prove themselves month by 
month. When Lady Buckingham withdraws from him 
her countenance, he falls at once from his fatal height — 
is stripped of the Seals with every mark of ignominy — 
and is driven, with a sullied reputation, though with 
sharpened powers for mischief, from the Court of Chan- 
cery into the more settled scenes of ecclesiastical strife. 

13. Were there space in his generous heart for ven- 
geance, how the passions of the great Chancellor would 
glow and leap as these adversaries fall before his eyes 
like rotten fruit ! Never was the wisdom of counsel 
proved more signally, the vindication of conduct more 
complete. All that he foresaw of evil has come to pass. 
He does not, indeed, live to behold that fiery joy which 
lights and shakes the land when Buckingham's tyranny 
drops under an assassin's knife ; but he lives long enough 
to find himself justified by facts on every point of his 
opposition to the scandalous family policy and private 
bargains of the Yilliers clan. Frances Coke has made 
Sir John a perfectly bad wife. Elizabeth Norreys has 
run away from Sir Christopher, giving up her beauty 
and her fortunes to Edward Wray. Lady Buckingham 

13. Chamberlain to Carleton, Mar. 30, 1622, S. P. 0.; Bacon's Will; Mon- 
tagu, xvi. part ii. 447; Dom. Papers of Charles the First, xxiv. 59. 



358 FEANCIS BACON. 

XIV. 13. herself, after moving earth and hell to pull down Abbott 

and make her lover an archbishop, has had to endure 
1625. . r 

nov.i. * ne P am an( ^ mortification of seeing the creature of her 

fantasy neglect her charms. Coke, Cranfield, Churchill, 
Williams, have been alike overwhelmed with misery and 
shame. But he feels no quickening pang of joy at the 
discomfiture of these enemies. From the moment of his 
own trial, he has accepted the position of a necessary 
sacrifice. He breathes no word against the House of 
Commons, nor questions the justice of the House of 
Lords. He speaks no evil word of the men who made 
themselves the instruments of his fall. But he holds to 
his nobler intellectual work, and the Father of Experi- 
mental Philosophy dies at last in the very act of an ex- 
periment, quitting the world in peace with all men, 
leaving a young widow, who, like her mother, will 
marry again, and appealing for the vindication of his 
fame to time. 



APPENDICES 



APPENDICES. 



No. I 


App. 
I. 


r Ann Bacon to Lord Burghley. 


(Original in Lansdowne MSS., xliii. 48.) 




Feb. 26. 1585. 





I know well, mine especial good Lord, it becometh me 
not to be troublesome unto your honor at any other time, 
but now chiefly in this season of your greatest affair and 
small or no leisure ; but yet, because yesterday morning, 
especially as in that I was extraordinarily admitted, it 
was your Lordship's favor, so, fearing to stay too long, I 
could not so plainly speak, nor so well receive your an- 
swer thereto, as I would truly and gladly in that matter, 
I am bold by this writing to enlarge the same more 
plainly, and to what end I did mean. 

If it may like your good Lordship, the report of the 
late conference at Lambeth hath been so handled, to the 
discrediting of those learned that labor for right reforma- 
tion in the ministry of the Gospel, that it is no small 
grief of mind to the faithful preachers ; because the 
matter is thus by the other side carried away, as though 
their cause could not sufficiently be warranted by the 
word of God. For the which proof they have long been 
16 



362 FKANCIS BACON. 

App. sad suitors, and would most humbly crave still both of 
*• God in heaven, whose cause it is, and of her Majesty 
their most excellent Sovereign here in earth, that they 
might obtain quiet and convenient audience either before 
her Majesty herself, whose heart is in God's hand to touch 
and to turn, or before your honors of the Council, whose 
wisdom they greatly reverence. And if they cannot 
strongly prove before you out (of) the Word of God that 
reformation which they so long have called and cried for, 
to be according to Christ's own ordinance, then to let 
them be rejected with shame out of the Church forever. 
And that this may be the better done to the glory of God 
and true understanding of this great cause, they require, 
first, leave to assemble and to consult together purposely, 
which they have forborne to do for avoiding suspicion of 
private conventicles. For hitherto, though in some writ- 
ing they have declared the state of their, yea God's cause, 
yet were they never allowed to confer together, and so 
together be heard fully. But now some one, and then 
some two, called upon a sudden unprepared, to four pre- 
pared to catch them, rather than gravely and moderately 
to be heard to defend their right and good cause. 

And, therefore, for such weighty conference they appeal 
to her Majesty and her honorable wise Council, whom 
God hath placed in highest authority for the advance- 
ment of his kingdom, and refuse the bishops for judges, 
who are parties partial in their own defence, because 
they seek more worldly ambition than the glory of Christ 
Jesus. 



LADY BACON TO LOED BUKGHLEY. 363 

For my own part, my good Lord, I will not deny but App. 
as I may I hear them in their public exercises as a chief *• 
duty commanded by God to widows ; and also I confess, 
as one that hath found mercy, that I have profited more 
in the inward feeling knowledge of God's Holy will 
(though but in a small measure) by such sincere and 
sound opening of the Scriptures by an ordinary preaching, 
within these seven or eight years, than I did by hearing 
odd sermons at Paul's wellnigh twenty years together. I 
mention this unfeignedly, the rather to excuse this my 
boldness towards your Lordship, humbly beseeching your 
Lordship to think upon their suit, and, as God shall move 
your understanding heart, to further it. And if oppor- 
tunity will not be had as they require, yet I once again 
in humble wise am a suitor unto your Lordship that 
you would be so good as to choose two or three of them 
which your honor liketh best, and license them before 
your own self, or other at your pleasure, to declare 
and to prove the truth of the cause with a quiet and 
an attentive ear. 

I have heard them say ere now they will not come 
to dispute and argue to breed contention, which is the 
manner of the bishops' hearing ; but to be suffered pa- 
tiently to lay down before them that shall command 
(they then excepted) how well and certainly they can 
warrant, by the infallible touchstone of the Word, the 
substantial and main ground of their cause. Surely, my 
Lord, I am persuaded you should do God acceptable 
service herein ; and for the very entire affection I owe 



364 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. and do bear unto your honor I wish from the very heart 
L that, to your other rare gifts sun dry wise, you were fully 
instructed and satisfied in this principal matter so con- 
temned of the great Rabbis, to the dishonoring of the 
Gospel so long amongst us. 

I am so much bound to your Lordship for your com- 
fortable dealing toward me and mine, as I do incessantly 
desire that by your Lordship's means God's glory may 
more and more be promoted, the grieved godly comforted, 
and you and yours abundantly blessed. None is privy to 
this ; and, indeed, though I hear them, yet I see them 
very seldom. I trust your Lordship will accept in best 
part my best meaning. 

In the Lord dutifully and most heartily, 

A. Bacon. 

For thinness of the paper I write on the other leaf for 
my ill eyes. 



ii. l. No. II. 

Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. 

(Orig. Lambeth MSS. 648, fol. 110.) 

May 29, 1592. 

I am glad and thank God of your amendment ; but 
my man said he heard you rose at three of the clock. 
I thought that was not well, so suddenly from bedding- 
much, to rise so early newly out of your diet. Extrem- 



LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 865 

ities be hurtful to whole, more to the sickly. If you be App. 
not wise and discreet for your diet and seasoning of your n - ■ 
doings, you will be weakish I fear a good while. Be wise 
and godly too, and discern what is good and what not for 
your health. Avoid extremities. "What a great folly were 
it in you to take cold to hinder your amendment, being 
not compelled, but upon voluntary indiscretion, seeing the 
cost of physic is much, your pain long, and your amend- 
ment slow, and your duty not yet done ! Give none 
occasion by negligence. You go, as is commonly said, 
of your own errands. I like not your lending your coach 
yet to any lord or lady ; if you once begin you shall 
hardly end ; but that in hope you shall shortly use it, I 
would it were here, to shun all offending. It was not 
well it was so soon seen at the Court, to make talk, 
and at last be mocked or misliked. Tell your brother 
I counsel you to send it no more. What had my 
Lady Shrewsbury to borrow your coach ! Your man 
for money, and somebody else for their vain credit, will 
work you but displeasure and loss, and they have thanks. 
Learn to be wise in things of this sort, and do nothing 
rashly. In haste. Late this Sabbath. Farewell. Take 

care of your health and please God. 

A. B. 

Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. II. 2. 

(Orig. Lambeth MSS. 649, fol. 65.) 

April 15, 1593. 

My neighbor upon going to London for his own busi- 
ness told me of it suddenly after this Sabbath forenoon 



366 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. sermon that he must go to London, and that early to- 
n - 2 - morrow. I am desirous to know how your health is ; 
how matters after Parliament go to private folk, namely, 
as concerns your cousin Hoby ; and, if you will, your 
brother too. God grant us all faithful hearts in piety 
and religion, and wise and discreet in godly practices. 
If any lack wisdom, ask of the Lord, and receive, as 
saith the Apostle James, his grace with all Christian 
fortitude to bear up a good conscience. I haste to the 
church again. God make you able to hear public in- 
structions to your great comfort ! I could willingly hear 
of Barly proceedings ; for your state of want of health 
and of money, and some other things touching you 
both, gives me no quiet. God bless you both with good 
and godly increase in Christ. 
Easter, as they say. 

Your mother, 

A. B. 

II. 3. Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. 

(Orig. Lambeth MSS. 649, fol. 100.) 

Gorhambury, June 26, 1593. 

Son, — 
Goodman Grinnell of Barly came this morning hither 
very sad upon a speech he had heard you were about 
to let his farm to another, yet hopeth better, both for 
your promise and the receipt of some money upon it. 
Good son, keep your word advisedly spoken ; it is a 
Christian credit. Be not suddenly removed nor believe 



LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 367 

hastily, but know whom and how. Sure, if that dis- App. 
position be found and observed in you once, it will be *L 3 - 
wrought upon to your hindrance in estimation and profit, 
besides that the grandfather, father, and son have there 
continued, — I think once upon a sale of wood in your 
absence I heard that the Grinnells had dwelled there 
above a hundred and twenty years. The man is will- 
ing to do as much as another ; the same person that 
now would I wot not. What reversion in your absence 
was backward, and rather hindered wood sales and other 
things, he would fain have had Goodman Fynch with him 
to you, but I can in nowise now spare him. Mowing 
and other businesses come on ; it is here marvellously 
hot and dry, and grass burnt away. God help us ! I 
pray you comfort Grinnell's heart and keep just prom- 
ises justly, and be not credulous lightly ; and so the 
Lord bless you and guide you with His Holy Spirit in 
His fear ! Be not too frank with that Papist ; such 
have seducing spirits to snare the godly. Be not too 
open. Sit not up late, nor disorder your body, that 
you may have health to do good service when God shall 

appoint. 

Your careful mother, 

A. Bacon. 
Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. H 4. 

(Orig. Lambeth MSS. 649, fol. 232.) 

Oct. 8, 1593. 

I pray God keep you safe from all infection of sin and 
plague. It hath pleased the Lord to put me in remem 



368 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. brance, on both sides of me, by taking two of the sick- 
U- 4. ness, very necessary persons to me, a widow, specially 
the goodman Fynch, whose want I shall have cause to 
lament daily. His careful, and skilful, and very trusty 
husbanding my special rural businesses every way pro- 
cured me, and that even to the very last, much quiet of 
mind and leisure to spend my time in godly exercises, 
both public and private. I confess I am so heartily sorry 
for his death as I cannot choose but mourn my great 
loss thereby, and now in my weakish sickly age ; but the 
Lord God doth it to humble His servants and teach them 
to draw nearer to Him in heart unfeignedly, which grace 
God grant me to be effectual in me. I humbly beseech 
His pity. Surely, son, one cannot value rightly the 
singular benefit of such a one in these dissolute and 
unfaithful days, but by wise consideration and good ex- 
perience. It may be you know it ere this, by somebody's 
posting in jollity ; but be wise and learn in time to your 
own good estimation, and be not readily carried either 
to believe or do upon unthrifts' pleasing and boasting 
speeches, and but mockeries, in order to make their 
profit of you and to bear out their unknown to you 
disordered unruliness. Among their peradventure pot- 
fellowship companions there will be craving of you, and 
I wot not what. Promise not rashly, be hie juris ; you 
shall be better esteemed both of wise and unwise before 
that punitive experience shall teach you to your cost. 
It is said that Thistleworth is visited. Some talk how 
Fynch should take it there in baiting his horse ; but now 



LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 869 

lie is gone. So was the will of God, who bless you and App. 

send you much good of all your bodily physic, and make IL 4 - 

you strong to do His holy will to your comfort. Be slow 

in speaking and promising, lest you repent when it is too 

late. Commend me to your brother. Look well to your 

house and servants. Fear late and night roads, now 

towards winter. 

Your sad mother, 

A. Bacon. 
Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. n. a 

(Orig. Lambeth MSS. 650, fol. 223.) 

Sept. 7, 1594. 

I send you herein Crosby's letter, because you may 
better understand by it the words of the Sheriff to him- 
self, if the State be brought in question. I am sorry of 
the last act you so earnestly required, whereto I was 
hardly drawn, as you know, for doubt of danger. Doubt- 
less your brother Nic hath done somewhat in the Ex- 
chequer. You thought it could not come to his ear so 
soon ; but you see you are deceived. You shall do well 
to send for the attorney and mine, — Marsh I do mean. 
If he should strain upon the manor to trouble me and 
my tenants, I have brought myself in good case by your 
means. Mr. Crew is not in city I hear. It is the worse. 
The Sheriff threateneth to strain before the next audit, 
which is before Michaeltide, which is not three weeks 
hence at uttermost. You had not need to slack this, as 
Brocket's matter is to my hinderance. Some money I 
16* x 



•370 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. had need of for to have pay the suit by his cousin. I 
■"• 5 * have not of mine own at this present for my house 
and other charges 61. in money : I am ready to borrow 
10/. of my neighbors if I can. I send purposely. I 
pray you let me know certainly what way you take to 
help it with speed. If it once come in Exchequer suit, 
one trouble will follow another. Prevent therefore. I 
would fain have gone to London for physic next week, 
but I perceive I cannot, being weakish to ride so far, 
and- the way is but ill for a coach for me, besides the wet 
weather. I will desire Mistress Morer to be with me here 
for that time. If you prove your new in hand physic, 
God give you good of it. My Lord Treasurer about five 
years past was greatly pressed by the great vaunt of a 
sudden start-up glorious stranger, that would needs cure 
him of the gout by boast ; " but," quoth my Lord, " have 
you cured any ? Let me know and see them." " Nay," 
said the fellow, " but I am sure I can." " Well," con- 
cluded my Lord, and said, " Go, go, and cure first, and 
then come again, or else not." I would you had so done. 
But I pray God bless it to you, and pray heartily to God 
for your good recovery and sound. I am sorry your 
brother and you charge yourselves with superfluous 
horses. The wise will but laugh at you both ; being but 
trouble, besides your debts, long journeys, and private 
persons. Earls be Earls. Your vain man straitly by 
his sloth and proud quarrel-picking conditions sets all 
your house at Redbourn out of quiet order by general 
complaint, as I hear. Lately young Morer was smote in 



LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 371 

the eye by him, and I pray God you hear not of some App. 
mischief by him. But my sons have no judgment. n * 5 - 
They will have such about them, and in their house, and 
will not in time remedy it before it break out in some 
manifest token of God's displeasure. I cannot cease to 
warn as long as I am a mother that loveth you in the 
Lord most dearly, and as Seneca by philosophy only 
could say, in warning a friend I would rather lack 
success (which yet I deprecate) than fidelity. 

Your mother, 

A. Bacon. 

The heavenly preacher saith, Each thing hath his op- 
portunity and due season : well may you do as blessed 
in the Lord ! 

Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. n - 6 - 

(Orig. Lambeth MSS. 650, fol. 75.) 

March 1595. 

One of the prophets, Nahum I think, saith that the 
Lord hath His way in the whirlwind, the storm, and 
tempest, and clouds are the dust of His feet. The 
wind hath had great power, — it hath thrown off a num- 
ber of tiles, some fruit-trees, and one or two other pales, 
posts and all, and stone pinnacle ; and that I am sor- 
riest for, hath blown up a sheet of lead on one side of 
the gate where the dial stands. But, in my conscience, 
your French cattle, Jaques and all, had before loosened 
it with hacking lead for pellets. I pray burn this. Let 



872 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. them not see it ; but hurtful they were. I desire to 
lL6 - know how you did and do. I pray be careful to be 
well to your own comfort and good desire of your 
friends, with avoiding cold-taking continually and pre- 
venting by wariness. Sustain and abstain, and be cheer- 
ful and sleep in due time. I liked nothing my cousin 
Kemp's horse I sent you. I will not Graham's. My 
time is in God's hand, and not at his appointment : 
he ever stood upon a month's warning in my life. 
Some unknown trick there is ; it will not serve with 
me doubtless. And shall Elsdon and Brocket thus dally 
and mock still ? If God give me strength I will to 
London for these two causes, by His merciful guiding. 

A. B. 

II. 7. Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. 

(Orig. Lambeth MSS. 650, fol. 69.) 

March, 1595. 

I came yesterday home, I thank God well, though 
very weary, by that missing the right way we roved 
and made it longer. I found a very sick and sore 
altered man. One might by him see what is the change 
wrought by the hand of the Highest in correcting. He 
hath been, as you know, a strong-armed man, and active 
in such exercises of strength as shooting, wrestling, cast- 
ing the bar ; and whilst he was with me I never used 
footstool to horseback ; but now, God help him, weak 
in voice, his flesh consumed, his hands, bones, and sin- 
ews ; but his belly up to his very chest swollen and 



LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 373 

hoved up, and as hard withal as though one touched App. 
wainscot. I thank the Lord that put me in the mind IL 7 - 
.to visit him with a Christian desire to comfort his soul, 
which I trust Mr. Wilblood's spiritual counsel and com- 
fort, with hearty prayer, was a mean to it ; God, I trust, 
working with his admonitions in the sick body to the 
reviving of his soul. He hath his memory perfect, and 
well and glad of godly correction. God grant him and 
myself also his continual sweet comfort and feeling 
mercy to the end ! Amen. 

For your going you spoke of to London, and will 
have the two beds hence for your servants, let me know 
in time. I would you had here tarried till that re- 
move ; you should have spared much waste expense, 
which you need not, and have been better provided. 
Surely, if you keep all your Redbourn household at 
London, you will undo yourself. Money is very hard 
to come by, and sure friends more hard ; and you shall 
be still in other folk's danger, and not your own man, 
and your debts will pinch you, though you may hope ; 
but your continual sickliness withal is a great hindrance ; 
and if you make show of a housekeeping in the city, 
you shall quickly be overcharged, much disquieted, and 
brought not over the ears but over shoulders. There- 
fore at the beginning be very wary and wise, as it is 

said. " Learn to be wise for yourself," one said 

Consult the Lord, and do nothing rashly. I could not 
choose but advise as heretofore. God guide you to 
safe age's rest, and best course. 



374 francis bacon. 

App Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. 

II 8 

(Orig. Lambeth MSS. 651, foi. 66.) 

March 30, 1595. 

I mean, if God will, to come hither again before 
Easter; but you are going farther hence than my 
ableness will endure to travel, either by water or by 
land, and know not when I shall see you any more. 
I pray God to go before you, and to be with you ever, 
to heal you, to help you, and to counsel and comfort 
you continually with His fatherly love in Christ Jesus 
our Lord. Amen. 

I wrote yesterday to my Lady Walsingham and by her 
to the Countess [of Essex]. She took it well, and 
thanked me. The Countess is very near her travailing 
time. I beseech God of His goodness make her a joyful 
mother, with daily increase of God's blessing upon her 
and hers. Beware in anywise of the Lord H. [Howard] ! 
He is a dangerous intelligencing man ; no doubt a subtle 
Papist inwardly, and lieth in wait. Peradventure he 
hath some close working with Standen and the Spaniard 
[Perez]. Be not too open ; he will betray you to divers, 
and to your Aunt Russell among others. The Duke had 
been alive but by his practising and still soliciting him, 
to the double undoing. And the Earl of Arundel, avoid 
his familiarity as you love the truth and yourself. A 
very instrument of the Spanish Papists. I pray you no 
creature know or see this I write ; but burn it with your 
own hands. And remember ; for he, pretending courtesy, 
works mischief devilishly. I have long known him and 



LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 375 

observed him ; his workings have been stark naught. App. 
Stand at a distance ! I am sorry I cannot speak with ™ 8 - 
Dr. Fletcher for your horse. I would certainly know. 
It is not like you will brew hastily. Send me word what 
time you guess, because of mine absence if God let me 
live. But vessels and carriage must surely be provided ; 
for indeed I have none for malt. If you tell Crosby your 
mind, I will pay for it when I have received rents. Gryst 
is very dear methinks, but he denieth. If you had taken 
your physics here in your well-warmed house, it had been 
better I think. God be your guide in all your ways, and 
take heed of cold-taking upon remove and after physic. 
Call for your own necessaries ; you may forget you, and 
you smart for it. Use your legs as you may, daily ; they 
will else be the feebler, and the sinews stark and 
strengthless. It is true, I fear, there is no ordinary 
preaching ministry at Chelsea. I cannot tell how to 
lament it ; but both my sons, methinks, do not care for 
it where they dwell. Greater want cannot be. We had 
needs watch continually to be well armed against evil 
days, imminent to be feared ; for of all sorts we wax 
worse and worse. London waxeth straitlaced, urging 
that slavish pleasing will not salve his hard-cured sore. 
Burn this. The God of mercy, health, and peace com- 
pass you about with His heavenly favor wheresoever. 
Farewell in Christ now and ever. Your mother, 

A. B. 

My grief is great about Essex, and truly I fear lest 



376 FKANCIS BACON. 

App. opportunity should have given rise to most shameful and 

TL 8. grievous adultery and the midst of evils and (Here 

follow five words much blotted and very indistinct.) 

II. 9. Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. 

(Orig. Lambeth MSS. 657, fol. 54.) 

Gorhamtmry, April 1, 1595. 

I send between your brother and you the first flight of 
my dove-house : the Lord be thanked for all : ij dozen 
and iiij pigeons, xij to you, and xvj to your brother, be- 
cause he was wont to love them better than you from a 
boy. Marvellous hard, snowy, haily, and strong, windy 
weather here, and great scarcity. I have had more toil 
in my body few days since I came last hither than in 
above twice as long at London. I wish myself there 
again, and peradventure, if God will, I will before Easter 
as now minded. I am glad your beer was sent so soon. 
To-day, upon occasion of a maid sending to Redborn, but 
none of my servants, I hear Mistress Read and Henry are 
malcontent for certain implements ; specially, as they say, 
in the best reserved chamber for your friends, noble or 
not noble, a carpet, and other things filled with birds, 
hunting or hawks or dogs. Mr. Lawson was the noble- 
man lodged there, I ween ; and like enough, for he is 
subtle, vainglorious, and makes you bleared still to 
insure all, and pay for all ; and further, as was reported, 
that Norris was discontented for your requiring to Mr. 
Read, he not made privy before. Thus they talk, and 



LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 377 

something else, now you are gone ; and one that tames App. 
the bit is become a tippler and will be overseen with n " 9 * 
drink, but an ill servant in your house, the fruit of idle- 
ness. 

Large was here this day. I told him it was honesty 
and Christian duty to dwell at home with his wife. I 
would, I said, be loath that my son should bear the blame 
of his being an ill husband, and leave his first calling to 
labor, for to leave over to be a good thriving fellow. I 
used him so still, though other civil service, washing 
among. It is commonly spoken that Fynch of Woodend 
and Guaram are joint companions in all ill fellowship. 
Use them thereafter, and take no luck by such. You 
and your brother have taken much discredit by not 
judging wisely and rightly of those ; yea, both of you, 
over-credit to your willing hinderance. I pray the Lord 
give you both good understanding by His word and spirit, 
and health to serve Him in truth, to your good estima- 
tion, with increase of His blessed favor. Let not your 
men be privy hereof. As your good mother, I thus 
certify. Think of it. 

Your mother, 

A. B. 

Use your legs betimes, for fear of losing by disuse. 

Good Rolf was here to-day to speak with me, and very 
sadly said thus to me, that he had before now, and pres- 
ently again did hear that his farm should be let from 
him ; whereupon his ancient wife and he both were much 



378 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. grieved. I told him I never heard any tittle of it, and 
*?■ 9 - thought it was nothing ; so it will be worse, I wis, for 
you to make a change for Humphrey. He hopes you 
will at least let him tarry iij years longer after his present 
state. Finished scamblers are easily had everywhere, but 
discreet, honest, sufficient farmers would be continued ; 
they serve the country and countenance their landlord 
indeed. Guar am will prove stark naught if you suffer 
him to let the ground from Pleatah farm ; you are mar- 
vellously abused by him and misled ; some in my house 
are too often with him. I will look better to them for it. 
Yet by them I hear of these his naughty doings, both for 
himself and you. God be with you, and make you able 
to every good duty, and guide you all ways to your com- 
fort. God knows when I shall see you. I am therefore 
more careful to advertise you to beware. Remember 
Groome I pray you. Brocket will make jest of us both. 
Keep not superfluous servants to mar them with idleness 
and undo you. Let Large live at home ; best for him, a 
married man. Nobody see this, but burn it, or send it 
back ; and so commend you to the Lord. 

n - 1°- Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. 

(Orig. Lambeth MSS. 651, fol. 65.) 

April 1, 1595. 

Son, — 
Woodward told me you required a hogshead of beer. 
I will, if it please God I come well and in time home 
to-morrow, 1 will send you one by the cart of my best 



LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 379 

ordinary beer ; the rest remaining is March. 1 pray you App. 
let me have another hogshead for it. I shall lack else ; n * 10, 
and let one be ready with a car, because of double jum- 
bling. I think, well used, you may drink it after five 
days' settling at least ; but that, as you see, being above 
iiij months old, after it is broached it will not last above a 
fortnight because of turning. 

This bearer I have newly taken into my house. 

A. B. 

Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. U. 11. 

(Orig. Lambeth MSS. 657, fol. 64.) 

Gorhambuiy, April, 3, 1595. 

I thank you for your horses. I send you a hogshead 
of November beer, me thinks good, and a barrel also of 
the same brewing which I did cause the brewer then to 
tun of the first tap of the same brewing, and so strong, 
because at that time it was thought you would come to 
Redburn, and I meant it to you : it is so strong as I 
would not drink ordinarily to my meals, but do you use 
it to your most good ; in any wise, when these two vessels 
be empty let them be returned by the cart. I cannot 
want [do without] them indeed, and they be strong, 
besides divers other vessels of mine sent to your sundry 
places. I did at one time send six together, if not seven, 
to Eedburn, and I paid viis. for heading and hooping and 
seasoning of them ; howsoever they made you pay after- 
ward. I did so in truth. I pray remember Groom's 
ill handling, and curb it well for all his naughty and 



380 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. tippling mates. I wrong my men, living well and Chris- 

IL 11 - tianly in their honest vocation, to suffer them to be ill 

entreated and myself contemned ; I mean not so. Crosby 

purposeth to be with you on Monday if God will, and 

your corn ready. 

Your mother, 

A. B. 

Yesterday, seeing my sister Russell at the Blackfriars 
house, after the sermon, I found her very much grieved, 
and her words charging my Lord Treasurer of very un- 
kind dealing in a matter very chargeable to [her] , and a 
slight end procured, she said to her hurt, with tears on 
account of him. I saw her so lamenting, I said I would 
write to Sir Robert Cecil. " No, no," said she ; " it is 
too late ; he hath marred all, and that against my coun- 
sel's liking at all." But [do] not you nor your brother 
intermeddle in it nor be a knowing of it. I pray you 
show your brother this, and let him not take knowledge 
lest you both set on work ; and for that Howard, once 
again be very ware as of a subtle serpent. Burn all, for 
fear of the servants. Be not hasty to remove. Your 
drink well used, and not set abroach all at once, above 
the bung first, then by degrees lower once or twice, will 
be better and last long, saith the brewer. York House 
lease is not here, as I said to my cousin Kemp. Mr. 
Bayley hath seen every place purposely to satisfy my 
Lord Keeper. I do not remember that ever I saw any 
lease from the Bishop sealed, but by parley and trust 



LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 381 

betwixt both. Farewell. The brewer, who is now here, App. 
saith that your beer now sent, well handled, will drink . tt* 
well a month's space. Let not your servants beguile 
you secretly or openly. Use your legs in any wise and 
daily, lest they fail you when you would ; neglect not in 
time, and serve the Lord with all your heart. 

Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. H. 12. 

(Orig. Lambeth MSS. 651, fol. 102.) 

May 15, 1595. 

Grace, and the love of the Lord in Christ. — Your 
beer, well handled I trust, is meant to be sent to-morrow 
early. The brewer hath been careful himself. I had no 
brewing, I dare say these twelve months, more diligently 
attended upon of my servants ; if the carriers do their 
part, and all were well watched and looked to in the 
cellar, it is thought for your own special use it will last 
till nigh Michaeltide, both for quantity and quality. As 
you appointed it is brewed, 8 hogsheads in all, and of the 
chiefest beer 2 hogsheads, marked with an S on each 
side of the wheel mark ; the third, somewhat less strong, 
being a second, is marked, likewise with chalk, with a 
smaller wheel-mark, and one only S, by it to know it 
rightly. All the other five alike. God give you the 
right use of all His gifts to God's glory and your own 
farther advancement and true comfort. 

The rowelled horse I had no mind to indeed, nor the 
horse Master Spencer rode on. Lawson thrust in here 
his and others smuttled and spoiled beast. The horse is 



382 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. full of windgalls, a token of very spoiling in riding 

II. 12. an( j dressing. Grass is here yet but poor and scant, 

and I must turn out shortly my two service geldings of 

necessity. I will not change my own faulty husband's 

horse for yours, both heavy and stumbling, and never 

broken for such a toward horse when you first had him. 

Diverse of my folk now sickly. God increase your 

health I pray God, and be merciful to us both. 

I thank you for your comely mastiff; it is supposed 

he will hunt after sheep ; he is too old ; I durst not 

prove him yet. 

Your mother, 

A. Bacon. 
n ' 13, Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. 

(Orig. Lambeth MSS. 657, fol. 144.) 

3 June, 1595. 

Son, — 

You had a mind to have the long carpet and the 
ancient learned philosopher's picture from hence ; but, 
indeed, I had no mind thereto, yet have I sent them, 
very carefully bestowed and laid in a hamper for safety 
in carriage. 

For the carpet, being without gold, you shall not I 
think have the like at this time in London, for the 
right, and not painted, colors ; which is too common in 
this age in more things than carpets, and such it is for 
all not of late bought worth you to buy. Such imple- 
ments as your father left I have very diligent locked 



LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 383 

in and kept. You have now bared this house of all Arp. 
the best ; a wife would have well regarded such things, **• 13 - 
but now they shall serve for use of gaming or tippling 
upon the table of every common person, your own men 
as well as others, and so be spoiled as at Redburn. I 
would think that John, your tailor, should be fittest 
to look well to your furniture. God, I humbly beseech 
Him, increase in you daily spiritual store, and also the 
comfort of bodily health and other comforts of this 
life to his own good pleasure, to whose fatherly love 
in Christ I commend you. 

I wish the hamper were not opened till yourself were 
at Chelsea, to see it done before you ; for the pictures 
are put orderly within the carpet. You have one long 
carpet already. I cannot think what use this should 
be. It. will be an occasion of mockery that you should 
have a great chamber, called and carpeted. What I 
say is not foolish. Draw no charge till God better en- 
able you ; but observe narrowly both for your health 
and purse. Surely your vi s beer is no ordinary drink 
for your house no time of the year specially, and usually 
too strong for you ; but Podagra will bestir him. See- 
ing God hath given you some good abilities, I would, 
I trow, watch over my diet and everything to put them 
in use by health to God's glory and your own more 
credit. 

If her Majesty have resolved upon the negative for 
your brother, as I hear, truly, save for the brust a little, 
I am glad of it. God, in His time, hath better in store 



384 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. I trust. For, considering his kind of health and what 
II. 13. cumber pertains to that office, it is best for him I hope. 
Let us all pray the Lord we make us to profit by 
His fatherly correction ; doubtless it [is] His hand, 
and all for the best, and love to His children that will 
seek him first, and depend upon his goodness. Godly 
and wisely love ye like brethren, whatsoever [happen], 
and be of good courage in the Lord with good hope. 

Farewell ! take diligent heed of your health ; be master 
of yourself and act most prudently. 

Your mother, 

A. Bacon, Widow. 

Do not readily relinquish or grant your town house to 
any one. 

n. 14. Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. 

(Orig. Lambeth MSS. 657, fol. 203.) 

Gorhambury, July 30, 1595. 

I most humbly thank God and much rejoiced when 
I heard by Crosby you do more exercise your body and 
your legs, and that in your course you go to the Earl 
yourself at occasions ; surely soon, by the grace of God, 
you shall find great help by bodily exercise in season, 
and much refreshing both to body and mind, and be 
more accepted of. I would advise you went sometimes 
to the French church, and have there, and bash not your 
necessaries for warmth to hear the public preaching of 
the word of God, as it is His own ordinance, and, armed 



LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 385 

so with prayer for understanding, it maketh the good App. 
hearers wise to Grod, and enables them to discern how to n - 14 - 
walk in their worldly vocation, to please Grod, and to be 
accepted of man, indeed, which God grant to you both. 

Truly, son, the miller's last coming to you was but of 
a craft to color his halting touching his secret consenting 
to steal, as cause hath been given to suspect him, not 
lately alone, but long : he waxeth a subtle fellow, and 
hath a cunning head of his own, now he goeth with meal 
to London and to some other places hereabout, and will 
mar the mill, I doubt, by his flitting. Wherefore should 
he have a net ? himself confessed about the scouring of 
the mill, but lately, that there was store of trout, and 
now almost none, because Bun and others did lately rob, 
as you know. I took the miller's part in defending his 
right dealing, and so the justices have bound Bun to 
good a-bearing till next sessions ; but that same Bun said 
earnestly that the miller could join and bear with some, 
and he could abide by it, and so hath Mr. Coltman said 
when I have blamed him but for angling. Certainly, son, 
where he bringeth you, though I would they were more 
for you, he carrieth to Mr. Preston and others twice as 
many, but say yet not so to him. I mean to take his net 
from him, he is waxen so heady, new-fangled, that the 
mill goeth to wreck, and customers begin to mislike and 
to forsake it, which will hinder our living and discon- 
tinue it. I will cause Humphrey to be paid as you order 
with Crosby ; surely set aside my poor mortmain, but 
200/., or little above, a small portion for my continuance. 
17 Y 



386 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. I thank the Lord for all : spending money goeth but from 
14, hand to mouth, as they say, with me. I gave your brother 
at twice 25/. for his paling, the rather to cheer him since 
he had nothing of me. Crosby told me he looked very 
ill ; he thought he taketh still inward grief ; I fear it may 
hinder his health hereafter. Counsel to be godly wise 
first, and wise for himself too, and both of you look to 
your expenses in time, and oversee those you trust how 
trustily, for I tell you plainly it hath been long common- 
ly observed that both your servants are full of money. 

My Lord Chief Baron's marriage with your sister 1 
never [had] any inkling of before Crosby told. I pray 
at your leisure write to me some circumstance of the 
manner, and God bless it. I send Winter purposely, 
because you should not send your boy. Gorhambury, 

penultima of July. 

Your mother, 

A. B. 

Nobody but yourself see my letters, I pray you. 
After harvest some venison would do well here. God 
bless you daily with good increase. 



II 15. Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. 

(Orig. Lambeth MSS. 651, fol. 211.) 

7 of Aug. 1595. 

For your bottles I thank you. The malmsey I tasted 
a little ; very good. Humphrey shall, God willing, be 



LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 38? 

answered ; but with a sight of his reckoning he asketh App. 
for 20 neats' tongues at once, not very seldom neither ; n - **• 
for Mr. Barber Crosby will go within these 3 days to 
keep your credit with him, and such is a very Chris- 
tian duty. Owe nothing to any, saith the Lord in his 
word, but to love one another. I would I were able 
to help you both out of debt ; but set apart my poor 
mortmain, which I certainly have vowed for any ac- 
knowledgments to God, I am not worth 100/. Yea and 
specially you have spent me quick ; nothing can there- 
fore remain after I am dead. God bless you ! I had not 
sent now but for this cause, by your message by Wy li- 
ter. The two countess sisters will neighbor you ; both 
ladies that fear God and love his word ; indeed zeal- 
ously, specially the younger sister. Yet upon advice 
and some experience, I would earnestly counsel you 
to be wary and circumspect, and not to be too open 
nor willing to prolong speech with the Countess of War- 
wick. She, after her father's fashion, will search and 
sound and lay up with diligence, marking things which 
seem not courtly, and she is near the Queen, and fol- 
lows her father's example too much in that. This is 
the cause of my now writing. Another matter is, that 
now the marriage of your sister is well, by God's appoint- 
ment, I trust [you] use not such broad language upon 
mislike of unkindness. Your men and others, how 
peradventure you mark not, may hurt you very much. 
Surely if such phrases as you wrote in your letter or 
such deriding should come to his ear, it would be very 



388 FRANCIS BACON. 

app. hurtful to you more than one way, which you need 
II. 15. no ^ being never abroad amongst them. Your sister's 
nature is but unkind, and at that time of her marriage 
could not herself think of such things. I pray hearken 
to him with all courtesy ; he is of marvellous good 
estimation for his religious mind in following his law- 
calling uprightly ; beware, therefore, in words and deeds 
and speeches at table before him. There is scarce any 
fidelity in servants. I write more hereof, because others 
write your letters and not yourself. 

I am sorry your brother with inward secret grief hin- 
dereth his health. Everybody saith he looketh thin and 
pale. Let him look to God and confer with Him in 
godly exercise of hearing and reading, and continue to 
be noted to take care : I had rather ye both, with God's 
blessed favor, had very good healths and were well out 
of debt, than any office. Yet, though the Earl showed 
great affection, he marred all with violent courses. I 
pray God increase his fear in his heart and a hatred 
of sin ; indeed, halting before the Lord and backsliding 
are very pernicious. I am heartily sorry to hear how he 
[the Earl of Essex] sweareth and gameth unreasonably 
God cannot like it. I pray show your brother this letter, 
but to no creature else. Remember me and yourself. 

Your mother, 

A. B. 

Gorhambury, 5th August, '95. 

With a humble heart before God, let your brother be 
of good cheer. Alas ! what excess of bucks at Gray's 



LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 389 

Inn, and to feast it on the Sabbath. God forgive and App. 
have mercy upon England ! n - 15 - 

Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. n. 16. 

(Orig. Lambeth MSS. 652, fol. 86.) 

Gorhambury, Oct. 21, 1595. 

Since it so pleaseth God, comfort your brother kindly 
and Christianly, and let me, mother, and you, both my 
sons, look up to the correcting hand of God in your 
wants every way, with humble hearts before Him, and 
with comfort, and procure your health by good means 
carefully. If I did not warily sustain and abstain, I 
should live in continual pain pitifully. For set sickness, 
to speak of, I have not now, I thank God, but very cum- 
bersome troublous accidents to keep me to exercise mor- 
tification. B-emember, her Majesty is, they say, now at 
Richmond. God preserve her from all evil, and rule her 
heart to the zealous setting forth of his glory ! Want 
of this zeal in all degrees is the very ground of our hon- 
est trouble. We have all dallied with the Lord, who will 
not ever suffer himself to be mocked. I send you xij pig- 
eons, my last flight, and one ringdove beside, and a black 
coney taken by John Knight this day, and pigeons, too, 
to-day. Lawrence can tell you my Lady Stafford's 
speech was of you, as she hath heard from her Majesty 
marvelling you came not to see her in so long space. 
Consider well and wisely ; for I sent him to her to know 
of her Majesty's good estate to Nonsuch, according to my 



390 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. duty, and to Mr. Doctor Smith. He came not home by 
u - 16 - London, as I bade him : do what you may for health, 
piously and diligently, out of question. Where you be 
you must needs disorder your time of diet and quiet ; 
want of which will still keep you in lame and uncomfort- 
able. I hear the Lord Howard is too often with you. He 
is subtilely deceitful. Beware ! beware ! Burn this. The 
Lord of heaven bless you from heaven, in Christ our Lord 

and hope. 

Your mother, 



A. Bacon. 



Burn, I pray, but read well first. 



n. 17. Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon. 

(Orig. Lambeth MSS. 657, fol. 113.) 

Gorhambury, June 15, 1596. 

By the good hand of the Lord I am come well to 
Gorhambury, where I find my household well and in 
good order. I thank God my sister my Lady Russell's 
coach is far easier than either of yours, and her man, 
a comely man withal, did it with care and very well ; 
and your brother's footman did very diligently go by 
me. Here be no strawberries nor fish to send ; and for 
beer, son, I have none ordinary under five weeks, at 
least above a month, brewed the first week of May, which 
now carried, after so long settling and in the heat of 
summer, must needs be spoiled, which were great pity 
this dearth time. Truly, son, as yet I know not when 



LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 391 

to brew, by my provision not this ij weeks at least, as App. 
well as for vessels. I have tierce of last March beer ; ^* 17 ' 
but surely, being yet unripe and carried this heat, it 
will be utterly marred. Paying Mr. Moore's bill for my 
physic, I asked him whether you did owe anything for 
physic ? He said he had not reckoned with you since 
Michaelmas last. Alas ! why so long, say I ? I think I 
said further it can be muted, for he hath his confections 
from strangers ; and to tell you truly, I bade him secretly 
send his bill, which he seemed loth but at my pressing, 
when I saw it came to above xv I. or xvj I. If it had 
been but vij or viij, I would have made some shift to 
pay. I told him I would say nothing to you because 
he was so unwilling. It may be he would take half 
willingly, because " ready money made always a cun- 
ning apothecary," said covetous Morgan, as his proverb. 
For Lange, I cannot tell what you would have me do 
for him: he finds I do not recompense evil with evil. 
I have at times given him, he knoweth ; but he is but 
whining, and a companion too much with naughty 
Goodram, though not at Redborn, but to his hurt. Let 
him ply his labor, in God's name, and not a busybody 
and secret quarrel-picker, as he is partly suspected. I 
use charity to him, though I like not his crafty sooth- 
ing nature. With thanks for your horse J. 0. . . . th 
heed all your infirmities to your comfort. Be zealous 
over your health. Hours sink away unseasonably. 

Farewell. 

Your mother, 

A. Bacon. 



App. 

m. 



392 FRANCIS BACON. 



No. III. 



Lady Anne Bacon, Jun., to her brothers Francis 
and Anthony Bacon. 

(Orig. Lambeth MSS. 648, fol. 10.) 

Guilford, 16th March, 1592. 

Good Brothers, — 
Being very desirous to see you both at Redgrave, and 
yet loth to put you to that pain which might by my 
desire impair your healths by entreating your repair into 
this country, yet can I not refrain, upon this occasion 
offered of the marriage of my daughter, heartily to pray 
you both to bestow your travels to Redgrave to the same, 
where, if it shall please God so to dispose of your busi- 
ness and healths as I may see you, I shall think myself 
greatly beholden to you, and the feast greatly honored 
by your presence. I hope also it will be comfortable to 
you, both in rejoicing with my husband and me in the 
action itself, and also in the intercourse and meeting of 
many good friends which you there shall see and meet 
with, especially your brother Anthony, having been so 
long absent from us all, and by that means have not seen 
sundry of those good friends of yours which I hope you 
shall there see. The day is appointed to be on the Thurs- 
day, the 6th of April ; and even so, with my very hearty 
commendations to you both, and wishing you all good as 
to myself, I cease to trouble you. 

Your very loving sister, 

Anne Bacon. 



HIS LETTEES. 393 

I 

No. IV. app. 

IV. 1. 

Francis Bacon to Thomas Phillips. 

(Orig. in State Paper Office.) 

Sir, — 
I congratulate your return, hearing that all is passed 
on your word. Your Mercury is returned, whose return 
alarmed us upon some great matter which I fear he will 
not satisfy. News of his coming came before his own 
letter, and to other than to his proper street, which 
maketh me desirous to satisfy or to solve. My Lord hath 
required him to repair to me, which, upon his Lordship's 
and my own letter received, I doubt not but he will with 
all speed perform, when I pray you to meet him if you 
may, that, laying our heads together, we may maintain 
his credit, satisfy my Lord's expectations, and procure 
some good fruit. I pray thee rather spare not your trav- 
ail, because I think the Queen is already party to the 
advertisement of his coming over, and, in some, suspect, 
which you may not disclose to him. So I wish you as 
myself, this 15th of September, 1592. 

Your ever assured, 

Fr. Bacon. 

Francis Bacon to Thomas Phillips. IV. a. 

(Orig. in State Paper Office.) 

[1593.] 

Mr. Phillips, — 
I send you the copy of my letter to the Earl touching 
the matter between us proposed. You may perceive what 
17* 



394 FKANCIS BACON. 

App. expectation and conceit I thought good to imprint into 
IV. 2. m y Lord, both of yourself and of this particular service. 
And as that which is in general touching yourself I know 
you are very able to make good, so in this beginning of 
intelligence I pray spare no care to conduct the matter to 
sort to good effect. The more plainly and frankly you 
shall deal with my Lord, not only in disclosing particu- 
lars, but in giving him caveats and admonishing him of 
any error which in this action he may commit (such is 
his Lordship's nature), the better he will take it. I send 
you also his letter, which appointeth this afternoon for 
your repair to him, which I pray, if you can, perform ; 
although, if you are not fully resolved of any circum- 
stance, you may take a second day for the rest, and show 
his Lordship the party's letter. If your business suffer 
you not to attend their Lordships to-day, then excuse it 
by two or three words in writing to his Lordship, and offer 

another time. 

In haste, your ever assured, 

Fr. Bacon. 

Whereas I mention in my letter an intelligence stand- 
ing in Spain of my brothers, I pray take no knowledge at 
all thereof. 

IV. 3. Francis Bacon to Thomas Phillips. 

(Orig. State Paper Office.) 

[1593.] 

Mr. Phillips, — 
I have excused myself of this progress, if that be to 
excuse to take liberty where it is not given. Being now 



HIS LETTERS. 395 

at Twickenham, I am desirous of your company. You App. 
may stay as long and as little while as you will ; the IV * 3 * 
longer the better welcome. Otia colligunt mentem? 
And, indeed, I would be the wiser by you in many 
things, for that I call to confer with a man of your ful- 
ness. In sadness come, as you are an honest man. So 
I wish you all good. From Twickenham Park this 14th 

of August. 

Yours, ever assured, 

Fr. Bacon. 
Francis Bacon to his Aunt Cooke. IV. 4 

(Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 649, p. 237.) 

Windsor Castle, 29 Oct., 1593. 

Aunt, — 
I had spoken a good while since with my Lord-Treas- 
urer, whose Lordship took pains to peruse the will which 
I had with me, and in conversation was of opinion that, 
if the younger children wanted reasonable allowance, it 
should be supplied, and the other parties to be stored for 
their advancement : of the same mind I ever was and am, 
and there is nothing in my cousin Morise's note against. 
Accordingly I have enclosed a note, of a proportion 
which I think you cannot dislike, and which I pray 
communicate with my cousin Morise and the rest of 
the executors. For my part, I wish you as a kind alli- 
ance. But the question is not between you and me, but 
between your profit and my trust. I purpose as soon as 
I can conveniently to put the money I have into some 



396 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. other hands, lest you think the case of the money pre- 
IV. 4. vaileth with me ; hut I will endure in a good cause, and 
wish I you right well. 

In haste, your loving nephew, 

Fra. Bacon. 

IV. 5. Francis Bacon to Sir Thomas Coningsby. 

(Orig. at Lambeth Palace, Vol. 649, p. 236.) 

[Oct. 1593.] 

My very good Cousin, — 
Whereas this gentleman, Mr. Nicholas Trot, one to 
whom, besides familiar acquaintance, I am much be- 
holden, hath conveyed unto him for his money a lease 
of the prebend of Withington, under the title of Mr. 
Heyghton, that was sometimes of the counsel of the 
Marches, a man not like to have been overreached in his 
bargains, against the which one Wallwyne claimeth by a 
former deed of gift, supposed to be forged and appearing 
to be fraudulent, because the same party undertook after- 
wards to sell it, and his interest hath been quietly missed 
by twenty years' space, I am earnestly to recommend the 
assistance of this my friend, according to the equity of 
the cause, to your good favor, whereof there will be the 
more need, both because he is a stranger in the country, 
and because the adverse party, as I understand, hath used 
force about the possession ; and therefore, good cousin, 
let him use your experience and careful countenance for 
direction and help, according to that good affection which 



HIS LETTERS. 397 

I persuade myself you bear me, and which I am ready to App. 
answer in all kindness. And so I wish you as IV - 5 - 

Your assured loving cousin, 

Fr. Bacon, &q. 

Francis Bacon to Sir Francis Allen. IV. 6. 

(Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 649, 309.) 

Edborne, this 25th of December, 1593. 

Sir, — 
I accept with all kindness and thanks possible the 
demonstrations you make from time to time of a sincere 
affection and singular respect towards me, namely, in 
your last letter to myself, and approve wholly yours to 
my brother, even to the least and last tittle thereof, wish- 
ing as a brother, for his own sake, that he had had but 
half as good a ground and reason for his demand as you 
have for your answer. Protesting unto you with a sin- 
cerity very present to the merit of your own touching me 
without prejudice, that the scanty link of German con- 
sanguinity should never have prevailed so far with me as 
to have once moved me to have given my clear consent 
to my brother for such his request or recommendation. 
Touching your particular business, I will not fail, by 
God's grace, in my next to our most honorable Earl, to 
perform my uttermost, and will not forget to acknowl- 
edge to our good friend Mr. Standen, that whatsover 
iriendly office he shall have rendered by his assistance to 
do to you, that same is done to myself. And so, with 
most hearty wishes of your health and contentment, I 



398 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. commit you to the protection of the Almighty, remaining* 
IV - 6 - always inviolably 

Your most entire friend and servant, 

F. B. 

IY. 7. Francis Bacon to Sir Francis Allen. 

(Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 649, 310.) 

Hampton Court, Dec. 20, 1593. 

Sir Francis Allen, — 
I do so much favor this gentleman, Mr. Garret, who 
from my praise entered a course of following the wars, 
which hath succeeded unto him as to his good commen- 
dations, so yet nevertheless not hitherto to his settling 
in any place answerable to his desert and profession. In 
regard whereof, understanding of the nomination and 
appearance of employment in Ireland, he conceive th it 
will be some establishment to him if he may receive your 
favor, being by you accepted in the place of your lieu- 
tenant, your own virtue and reputation answered, and 
the uncertainty of the French employment. Of his proof 
and sufficiency to serve I write the less because I take it 
to be well known to yourself, but for my particular I do 
assure you I can hardly imagine a matter wherein you 
shall more effectually tie me unto you than in this. I 
wished him to use me but as a mean of my brother's 
commendation, which I esteemed to be of extraordinary 
weight with you. But because this was the readier and 
that the entireness between my brother and myself is 



HIS LETTERS. 399 

well known to you, he desired to begin with this. Thus App. 
I wish you all protection. 

Yours in unfeigned good affection, 

F. Bacon. 

I was sorry to hear from Mr. Anthony Standen so 
sharply and unseasonably you were afflicted by the gout. 
But you have of him a careful solicitor, and if I can 
come in to him with any good endeavor of mine, you may 
reckon of it. 



Francis Bacon to the Masters of Requests. IV 8. 

(Orig. in the Record Office.) 

[?1593.] 

After my hearty commendations. At the request of 
this bearer, Mr. Edward Cottwin, an ancient follower and 
well-wilier to my name and family, I have considered of 
a suit of his depending before you for the recovery of 
certain rents due unto him for divers years past, and 
detained from him only upon a strained construction of 
extreme law. And finding the honesty of the man and 
the equity of his cause to deserve favor, considering that 
the main matter (which is the sum in demand) is freely 
acknowledged, I could do no less than recommend him 
unto your good discretions, desiring you in regard of his 
great loss and troubles to afford him, that which you 
deny to no man, lawful favor and expedition, which I 
shall be always ready thankfully to acknowledge by such 



400 FRANCIS BACON. 

Apr. friendly offices as shall fall within my compass. And so 
IV. 8. j i eave y 0U fa* God's safe tuition. 

Resting your very loving friend, 

Fr. Bacon. 

IV 9. Francis Bacon to Mr. Skinner. 

(Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 650, 143.) 

July 29, 1594. 

Sir, — 

I hope you will not find it strange nor amiss if the con- 
fidence I have in your kind affection makes me so bold 
as most earnestly to request you to pleasure me with the 
loan of five hundred pounds for a year. My occasion to 
employ the same presently is important. My meaning 
(though I say it myself) is entirely, as it ought to be, to 
satisfy you without fail at the day, and your assurance 
shall be my brother A. Bacon's and my own bond. 

The occasion, my good cousin, and my meaning being 
by you believed, as I assure myself they shall and most 
heartily pray they may you, I cannot doubt of the friend- 
ly assistance of my request as a form of assurance, but 
look for such a special favor at your hands, which I shall 
be always ready and glad to acknowledge when and 
wherein soever it shall please you to employ my true 
good will and sincere affection. And so desiring your 
answer, which I hope shall be no less to my contentment 
than my resolution of full acknowledgment to yours, I 
commit you to the protection of the Almighty, 

And rest your entire loving cousin to use, 

F. B. 



I 



his letters. 401 

Francis Bacon to Mr. Young. App. 

IV. 10. 

(Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 650, 186.) 

Gray's Inn, Sept. 2, 1594. 

Mr. Young, — 

I shall desire your friendly pains in the repairing and 
punishing of an outrage offered by one Thomas Lewys, 
dwelling near Whitechapel, upon a French gentleman of 
very good quality and honorable, and my special ac- 
quaintance, and upon his company, not in terms alone, 
but in very furious assailing them. My request to you is 
the rather for the good report of our nation, whither this 
gentleman is come only for his own satisfaction and ex- 
perience, that he may have experience of the good policy 
amongst us in correcting such insolences, specially upon 
strangers of his respect. And therefore desire you so 
great an abuse may be examined and corrected. And so 
in haste I wish you very well. 

Your very loving friend, 

Fr. Bacon. 

The French gentleman's name is Mr. Corugues, son 
to the principal treasurer of Guienne, and this bearer 
shall relate to you the particularities of the abuse. 

Francis Bacon to Anthony Bacon. IV. 11. 

(Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 650, 227.) 

Gray's Inn, Dec. 10, 1594. 

Brother, — 
I moved you to join with me in security for 500/., 
which I did purpose then decidedly to have taken up ; 

z 



402 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. 300/. odd secure, and 200/. by way of forbearance, both 
IV - *!■ to the satisfaction of Peter Yan, our servant. I thank 
you, you assented. I have now agreed with Peter for the 
taking up of the whole of one man's, according to which 
I send you the bonds and securities. You shall find the 
bond to be of 600/., which is one hundred more than it 
was at first. The jewel cost 500/. and odd, as shall ap- 
pear to you by my bond. Next I send you immediately 
for use an agreement, so to free you of one hundred, for 
which you stand bound to Mr. Willis Fleetwood. So in 
haste I commend you to God's good preservation. 
Your entire loving brother, 

Fr. Bacon. 

IV 12. Francis Bacon to Anthony Bacon. 

(Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 650, 237.) 

[Dec. 1594.] 

Good Brother, — 

If you leave the matter to me, I am like both to deal 
with my Lord of Essex in it, attending the first occa- 
sion, and to fortify it otherwise, as I will hereafter give 
you account. And where I doubt, acquaint you in 
particular beforehand. For Mr. Sugden, I had rather 
have brought payment than allegation. I ever doubt- 
ed the resting upon [him] would come to nothing, and 
I desire you to do as you wish ; and yet I will en- 
deavor to speed my part nevertheless, and the whole 
if I can. 

Mr. Trott I have desired to be here after to-morrow 



HIS LETTERS. 403 

to see her. He taketh this his second chance. I de- App. 
sired Dr. Hammond to visit yon from me, whom I -^ 12 - 
was glad to have here, he being a physician, and my 
complaint being want of digestion. 

I hope by this Sir Ant. Perez has seen the Queen 
dance. That is not it, bnt her distraction of body to 
be fresh and good, I do pray God both subjects and 
strangers may long be witnesses of. I would be sorry 
the bride and bridegroom should be as the weather 
hath fallen out : thus, it goes to bed fair, and rises 
lowering. Thus I commend you to God's best preser- 
vation. 

Your entire loving brother, 

Fr. Bacon. 
Francis Bacon to the Earl op Salisbury. IV. 13. 

(Orig. in State Paper Office.) 

[1607.] 

It may please your Lordship, — 

I send the two bills according to your Lordship's 
pleasure signified to me, hoping your Lordship will par- 
don me that they come not precisely at the hour. The 
book is long and full of difficulty ; and a business such 
as this is, I do not much trust to servants or prece- 
dents. I found it more convenient to put one pay- 
ment more upon the Privy Seal than your Lordship 
directed, and to take it from the rent; because else, 
the grant must have been for ten years and a half, 
which is not formal. So I most humbly leave, 

And rest your Lordship's most humble and bounden, 

F. Bacon. 



404 FRANCIS BACON. 



App. Francis Bacon to the Earl of Salisbury. 

IV. 14. 

(Orig. in the State Paper Office.) 

28th October, 1608. 

It may please your Lordship, — 
According to your Lordship's warrant on the 15th 
of June last I made a book ready for his Majesty's sig- 
nature to the use of Mrs. Ellis of the benefit of an ex- 
tent of the lands and goods of Richard Yonge her 
father, extended for a debt of 3,000/. upon recogni- 
zances ; which book is since past the Great Seal. And 
now having received order from your Lordship for 
amendment of the defects in that patent, I find the 
case to be thus : That she has since discovered two 
other debts of record, the one of 8,511/. 19s. 4c?., the 
other of 2,100/., remaining upon account in the Pipe 
Office. And though it be true that she shall reap no 
benefit by the former grant, except these debts be like- 
wise released, on regard the King may come upon the 
said lands and goods for these debts, — and it may be 
the meaning was in Queen Elizabeth to free and acquit 
Mr. Yonge of all debts ; for else Quid te exempta juvat 
spinis de pluribus una ? — yet do I not see how I may 
pass the book again, with a release of these two debts, 
without your Lordship's further warrant, which I hum- 
bly submit to your honorable consideration. 

Your Lordship's most humble and bounden, 

Fr. Bacon. 



his lettees. 405 

Francis Bacon to the Earl of Salisbury. App. 

IV. 15. 

(Orig. in the State Paper Office.) 

Gray's Inn, the 6th of July, 1609. 

It may please your Lordship, — 

The assurance which by your Lordship's directions 
was to be passed to his Majesty by Richard Forebenche, 
one of the yeomen of the guard of Potter's Park, within 
the parish of Chertsey, in the county of Surrey, is thor- 
oughly perfected ; so if your Lordship so please he may 
receive the money your Lordship agreed to pay for it. 
Your Lordship's most humble and bounden, 

Fs. Bacon. 

Francis Bacon to the Earl of Salisbury. jy 16 

(Orig. in the State Paper Office.) 

It may please your good Lordship, — 

Though Mr. Chancellor and we rested upon the old 
proclamation which Mr. Attorney brought forth, for mat- 
ter of transportation of gold and silver, yet because I 
could not tell whither it were that your Lordship looked 
for from us, and because if you should be of other opin- 
ion things might be in readiness, I send your Lordship a 
draught of a new proclamation, wherein I have likewise 
touched the point of change in that manner as was most 
agreeable to that I conceived of your intent ; the French- 
man, after I had given him a day, which was the morrow 
after your Lordship's departure, never attended nor 
called upon the matter since. Sir Henry Nevill has sent 



406 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. up a solicitor of the cause, to whom I perceive by Mr. 

Tv. 16. Qaivert your Lordship is pleased a copy of his answer 

when it shall be taken may be delivered. So, praying 

for your good health and happiness, I humbly take my 

leave from Gray's Inn, this 10th of August, 1609. 

Your Lordship's most humble and bounden, 

Fs. Bacon. 

IV. 17. Francis Bacon to the Earl op Salisbury. 

(Orig. in State Paper Office.) 

Gray's Inn, the 13th of Sept. 1609. 

It may please your Lordship, — 

According to your Lordship's letter, I send an abstract 
of the bonds and conditions touching the depopulation, 
whereby it will appear unto your Lordship that all the 
articles and branches of the condition consist only of 
matter of reformation in the country, and not of any 
benefit to the King, otherwise than that the forfeiture 
in point of law belongeth to his Majesty; but then the 
reformation is at large. So I very humbly take my leave. 
Your Lordship's most humble and bounden, 

Fs. Bacon. 

IV 18. Francis Bacon to Sir Julius Cesar. 

(Orig. in State Paper Office.) 

August 23, 1610. 

It may please your Honor, — 
In answer of your letter of the second of this present, 
but not delivered to my hands till the 20th thereof, con- 



HIS LETTERS. 407 

App. 

cerning Sir Robert Steward his petition exhibited to his IV. 18. 
Majesty in the name of Edward Williams, for the new 
founding of the Hospital of St. John's in the town of 
Bedford, I have examined the state of the cause, as far 
as information may be expected by hearing the one side ; 
and do find : That this hospital passed divers years since 
by a Patent of Concealment to Farneham, from whom 
the petitioner claimeth. That thereupon suit was com- 
menced in the Exchequer, wherein it seemeth the Court 
found that strength in the King's title, as it did order 
the hospital should receive a new foundation, together 
with divers good articles of establishment of the good 
uses, and an allowance of stipend unto the master. Nev- 
ertheless, I find not this order to be absolute or merely 
judicial ; but in the nature of a composition or agree- 
ment ; and yet that but conditional : for it directeth a 
course of judicial proceeding, in case the defendants shall 
not hold themselves to the agreement. And yet notwith- 
standing this order had this life and pursuance, as I find 
a letter from the Lord-Treasurer, his Lordship's father, 
to the then Attorney, for drawing up a book for the new 
foundation. After which time nothing was done for 
aught that to me appeareth : no patent under seal, no 
stirring of the possession, no later order : neither doth it 
appear unto me likewise in whose default the falling off 
was. But now of late, some four years past, and about 
fourteen years after the former order, upon information 
given of the King's right to the late Lord-Treasurer, Earl 
of Dorset, his Lordship directed a sequestration of the 



408 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. possession, and that without any mention of these former 
IV. 18. proceedings ; but that, being as it seemeth swiftly granted, 
was soon after by his Lordship revoked. The pretenders 
unto the right of this hospital (with whom likewise the 
possession hath gone) are as it seemeth the master of the 
hospital (at this time one Dennis) and the town of Bed- 
ford, who claim the patronage of it. But in what state 
the hospital is for repair, or for employment according 
unto the good uses, or for government, I can ground no 
certificate. And therefore it may please you to signify 
unto his Lordship as well the state of the cause heretofoi-e 
opened, as my opinion, which is that it were great pity 
that this hospital should continue either not well founded, 
or not well employed, the rather being situate in so pop- 
ulous and poor a town ; and that, nevertheless, herein 
some consideration may be had of the patentee's right ; 
but for the present, that which is first meet to be done, I 
conceive to be that the other party be heard ; and to the 
end to avoid a tedious suit (which must be defended with 
the moneys that should go to the sustenance of the poor) , 
his Lordship may be graciously pleased to direct his letters 
as well to the town of Bedford as to the present incum- 
bent, that they do attend a summary hearing of this cause 
(if his own great business will not permit) , before some 
other that he shall assign ; in which letters it would be 
expressed that they come provided to make defence and 
answer to three points : that is, the King's title now in 
the patentee ; the order and agreement in the Exche- 
quer, why it was not performed ; and the estate of the 



HIS LETTEES. 409 

hospital, whether it be decayed and misemployed ? And App. 
so I leave to trouble your Honor from Gray's Inn, 23d IV - 18# 
August, 1610. 

Your Honor's, to do you service, 

Fr. Bacon. 

Francis Bacon to the Earl of Salisbury. iv. 19. 

( Orig. in the State Paper Office. ) 

London, the 7th of May, 1611. 

It may please your good Lordship, — 
Understanding that his Majesty will be pleased to sell 
some good portion of wood in the forest of Dene, which 
lies very convenient to the company's wire works at Tyn- 
terne and Whitbrooke, we are enforced to have recourse 
to your Lordship as to our governor of the said company, 
humbly praying your Lordship to afford us some reason- 
able quantity thereof, the better to uphold the said works, 
whereof by information from our farmers there we stand 
in such need as without your Lordship's favor we shall 
hardly be able to subsist any long time. We do not 
entreat your Lordship for any other or more easy price 
than that your Lordship directs the sale of it to other, 
only we humbly pray for some preferment in the oppor- 
tunity of the place where the woods lie and in the quan- 
tity, as it may answer in some proportion to our wants. 
Herein, if your Lordship will be pleased to favor us, 
then we humbly pray your Lordship to direct us to some 
such persons as your Lordship resolves to employ in the 
18 



410 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. business. And so we humbly take our leaves of your 

ly - 19 ' Lordship. 

Your Lordship's humbly at command, 

Fr. Bacon. 
IV. 20. Francis Bacon to the Earl of Salisbury. 

(Orig. in State Paper Office.) 

October, 1611. 

It may please your Lordship,-— 
I return your good Lord's minute, excellently, in 
my opinion, reformed from the first draught in some 
points of substance. I send likewise a clause warranting 
the subject to refuse gold lighter than the remedies ex- 
pressed, which is no new device, but the same with 29th 
Eliz. I find also Mr. Dubbleday to make it a thing dif- 
ficult to name the pieces of more ancient coin than his 
Majesty's, for which I have likewise sent a clause. This 
last clause is immediately to follow the table of the coins 
expressed. The clause of the weight is to come last of 
all. So, with my prayers, I rest 

Your Lordship's most humble and bounden, 

Fr. Bacon. 

IV - 21 - Francis Bacon to King James. 

(Orig. in the State Paper Office.) 

January 31st, 1615. 

Though I placed Peacham's treason within the last 
division, agreeable to divers predecessors, whereof I 
had the records read, and concluded that your Majes- 



HIS LETTERS. 411 

ty's safety, and life, and authority was thus by law App. 
instanced and quartered, and that it was in vain to IV - 21 - 
fortify on three of the heads and leave you open on 
the fourth, it is true he heard me in a grave fashion 
more than accustomed, and took a pen and took notes 
of my divisions ; and when he read the precedent and 
records would say, That you mean falleth within your 
first or your second division. In the end I expressly de- 
manded his opinion as that whereto both he and I was 
enjoined. But he desired me to leave the precedents with 
him that he might advise upon them. I told him the 
rest of my fellows would despatch their part, and I 
should be behind with mine, which I persuaded my- 
self your Majesty would impute rather to his back- 
wardness than my negligence. He said as soon as I 
should understand that the rest were ready he would 
not be long after with his opinion or answer. For St. 
John's your Majesty knoweth the day draws on, and 
my Lord Chancellor's recovery the season and his age 
promiseth not to be hasty. I spoke with him on Sun- 
day, at what time I found him in bed, but his spirits 
strong and not spent or wearied, and spake wholly of 
your business, leading me from one matter to another, 
and wished and seemed to hope that he might attend 
the day for St. Joints, as it were (as he said) to be 
his last work, to commend his service and express his 
affection towards your Majesty. I presumed to say to 
him that I knew your Majesty would be exceeding de- 
sirous of his being present that day, so as it might be 



412 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. without prejudice to his continuance ; but that other- 
IV. 21. w j se y 0Ur Majesty esteemed a servant more than a ser- 
vice, specially such a servant. Surely, in my opinion, 
your Majesty had better put off the day than want 
his presence, considering the cause of the putting off 
is so notorious, and then the capital and the criminal 
may come together the next term. I have not been 
unprofitable in helping to discover and examine within 
these few days a late patent by surreption obtained from 
your Majesty of the greatest forest in England, worth 
30,000^., under color of a defective title, for a matter of 
4:001. The person must be named, because the patent 
must be questioned. It is a great person, my Lord of 
Shrewsbury, or rather, as I think, a greater than he, 
which is my Lady of Shrewsbury. But I humbly beg 
your Majesty to know this first from my Lord Treas- 
urer; who me thinketh groweth ever studious in your 
business. God preserve your Majesty. 

Your Majesty's most humble and devoted 
subject and servant, 

Fr. Bacon. 

The rather in regard of Mr. Murray's absence, I 
humbly pray your Majesty to have a little regard to 
this letter. 



his letters. 413 

Francis Bacon to the Council. App - 

IV. 22. 

(Orig. in State Paper Office.) 

January 27, 1616 [1617]. 

It may please your Lordships, — 
According to your Lordships' preference of the 12th 
of June last, I have considered of the patent of Clement 
Dawbeny, gent., for the slitting of iron bars into rods. 
And I have had before me the patentee that now is, and 
some of the nailers and blacksmiths that complained 
against the same. Whereupon it pleased your Lord- 
ships to call in the said patent. But upon examination 
of the business I find the complaint to be utterly un- 
just, and was first stirred up by one Burrell, master 
carpenter to the East India Company, who hath already 
of himself begone to set up the like engine in Ireland, 
and therefore endeavored to overthrow the said patent, 
the better to vent his own iron to his further benefit and 
advantage, whereas the nailers and blacksmiths them- 
selves do all affirm that they are now supplied by the pa- 
tentee with as much good and serviceable iron, or rather 
better, than heretofore they have been, and that the said 
patent hath been of much use to the kingdom in gen- 
eral, and likewise very beneficial to themselves in their 
trades. And, therefore, your Lordships may be pleased 
to suffer him quietly to enjoy it without any further 
interruption, and to this did Burrell himself and the 
opposers willingly condescend, which nevertheless I sub- 
mit to the wisdom of this most honorable Board. 

Fr. Bacon. 



414 FRANCIS BACON. 

App - Francis Bacon to King James. 

IV. 23. 

(Orig. in State Paper Office.) 

March, 1617. 

The gracing of the Justices of Peace. That your 
Majesty doth hold the institution of Conservators and 
Commissioners or Justices of the Peace to be one of 
the most laudable and politic ordinances of this realm or 
any other realm. That it is not your own goodness or 
virtues, nor the labors of your counsel or Judges, that 
can make your people happy, without things go well 
amongst the Justices, who are the conduits to convey 
the happy streams of your government to your people. 
That your Majesty would as soon advance and call a 
knight or gentleman that liveth in an honorable and 
worthy fashion in his country ; and it were to be of 
your counsel or to office about yourself, your Queen, or 
son, or an Ambassador employed in foreign parts, or a 
courtier bred an attendant about your person. That 
your Majesty is and will be careful to understand the 
country as well as your court for persons, and that those 
that are worthy servants in the country shall not need to 
have their dependence upon any the greatest subject in 
your kingdom, but immediately upon yourself. 

IV. 24. Francis Bacon to Lord Zouch. 

(Orig. in State Paper Office.) 

Gorhambury, 3d August, 1619. 

Whereas there are processes gone out, at Mr. Attor- 
ney-General's prayer, against Hugh Hugginson and Josias 



HIS LETTERS. 415 

Elite, concerning the business against the Dutchmen in App. 
Star Chamber ; out of a desire to preserve the ancient IV - ~ 4, 
privileges and customs due to your place, not to serve 
such process within your jurisdiction without your leave 
and consent, I thought good hereby to desire your Lord- 
ship for his Majesty's service, that you would cause 
them forthwith to be sent up to answer Mr. Attorney's 
bill, and abide such further proceedings as their case 
shall require. 

Francis Bacon to King James. IV. 25. 

(Orig. in State Paper Office.) 

Oct. 1626 [?1620]. 

May it please your Majesty, — 
According to your commandment I have considered 
of your patent granted about the time of your going 
into Scotland unto Mr. Murray and Sir Eob* Lloyd, of a 
custom or duty detained from your Majesty of one shil- 
ling four pence upon the cloth and 2s. in the pound upon 
certain Northern cloth, by color of a Privy Seal [of] 
Queen Elizabeth and of a former Seal certificate made by 
the Earl of Suffolk, then Lord Treasurer, Mr. Chancellor 
that now is, and myself, then your Attorney-General, 
upon which certificate the patent did pass. And do find 
that the said certificate is very true and well grounded, 
wherein I have strengthened myself with the opinion of 
your new Solicitor, so that there is no doubt but the right 
was and is in your Majesty, and the third part thereof 
was sufficiently granted unto them, who nevertheless sub- 



416 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. mit their interest (being for one-and-twenty years) unto 
IV. 25. vour Majesty. But to suffer the patent to go on to oper- 
ation, either for your Majesty's two parts or their third 
part, considering that the merchants have been in long 
past of that ease, and that cloth is now loaden with the 
pretermitted duty which was not before (and of which 
this is no part), and [damaged] the state of the trade of 
cloth hath been weakened [damaged] for that is con 

cerned the cost of some of the out ports not in 

any sort advise it, but humbly leave it to your Majesty's 
. . . r judgment. 

TV. 26. Francis Bacon to Secretary Conway. 

(Orig. in State Paper Office.) 



January 21, 1623. 



Good Mr. Secretary, 



When you visited me you expressed in so noble a 
fashion a vif sense of my misfortunes, as I cannot but 
express myself no less sensible of your good fortune, and 
therefore do congratulate with you for your new honor 
now settled. The excellent Marquis brought me yester- 
day to kiss the King's hands, so as now methinks I am 
in the state of grace. Think of me and speak of me 
as occasion serveth. I shall want no will to deserve it. 
At best, nobleness is never lost. I rest your affectionate 
friend, to do you service, 

Francis St. Albans. 



HIS LETTERS. 417 

App. 
Francis Bacon to Secretary Conway. iy t 27. 

(Orig. in State Paper Office.) 

Gray's Inn, 3d of Jnne, 1624. 

Good Mr. Secretary, — 
This gentleman, Mr. Richard G-ilinan, who hath 
been (?) towards me, hath served formerly in Scinde 
and Russia and the Low Countries, and is suitor now 
for a lieutenant's place in these succors which are now 
to be sent. I recommend his suit unto you, and shall 
give you very hearty thanks if, for my sake, you will 
pleasure him. 

I rest your very affectionate friend, 

Fs. St. Albans. 



i 



No. V. 
Anthony Bacon to Francis Bacon. 

(Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 650, fol. 221.) 

Brother, — 
I thought it meet to advertise you that my Lord of 
Essex, being come expressly yesterday, after dinner, 
to speak with the French ambassador and Sir Anthony 
Perez, not finding Sir Anthony Perez at his house, but 
word that he should repair to Walsingham House with 
all speed ; where he had two hours' conference with 
him, and, and amongst other things, urged the matter 
you wot of at large, with no less judgment than devo- 

18* A A 



418 FRANCIS BACON. 

App. tion to my Lord's honor and profit, and good affection 
v - to us. His argument my Lord heard most attentively, 
and accepted most kindly of many right hearty thanks, 
assuring him that, at his return — which should be 
within two days — from the Court, he would resolve. 
The occasion was very fitly ministered by my Lord him- 
self, by advertising Spencer that the Queen had signed 
,at two of the clock, and had given him a hundred 
pounds in lands, simple fee, and 30/. in parks, which, 
for her quietness' sake, and in respect of his friend, he 
was content to accept without any further contention. 
And so I wish you as myself, 

Your entire loving brother, 

Anthony Bacon. 



vl i. No. VI. 

Essex to * * *. 

(Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 657, 90.) 

My Lord, — 
By the advancement of Sir Thomas Egerton to the 
place of Lord-Keeper (in which choice I think my coun- 
try very happy), there is void the office of Master of the 
Rolls. I do, both for private and public respects, wish 
Mr. F. B. to it before all men, and should think much 
done for her Majesty's service if he were so placed as his 
virtues might be active, which now lie as it were, buried. 
What success I have had in commending him to her 



LETTERS OF THE EARL OF ESSEX. 419 

Majesty your Lordship knows. I would not the second App. 
time hurt him with my care and kindness. But I will ^ I- *• 
commend unto your Lordship his cause; not as his alone, 
or as mine — his friend, but as a public cause, wherein 
your Lordship shall have honor to the world, satisfaction 
to see worthy fruit of your own work, and exceeding 
thankfulness from us both. And so I rest, 

Your Lordship's cousin and friend, 

E. 

Essex to Sir John Fortescue. VI. 2. 

(Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 657, 90.) 

Cousin, — 
I do commend unto you both present actions and ab- 
sent friends, — I mean those that are absent from me, so 
as I can neither defend them from wrong nor help to 
that right their virtue deserves. And, because an occa- 
sion offers itself before the rest, I will commend unto you 
one above the rest. The place is the Mastership of the 
Rolls ; the man, Mr. Francis Bacon, a kind and worthy 
friend to us both. If your labors in it prevail, I will owe 
it you as a particular debt, though you may challenge it 
as a debt of the state. 

And so, wishing you all happiness, I rest, 

Your cousin and friend, 

E. 

Coitsin, — I pray you remember my good Dr. Browne. 
I shall challenge you for a great unkind ness if his suit 
succeed ill. 



420 FRANCIS BACON. 

Apr No. VII. 

VII. 1. 

Extracts from the Council Register, April 25, 1614. 

(Orig. in Privy Council Office.) 

Present : — 
Lord Chancellor. 
Earl of Pembroke. 
Lord Wotton. 
Mr. Secretary Winwood. 
Sir Julius Caesar. 
Sir Thomas Lake. 

A Letter to Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, His Majes- 
ty's Attorney-General. 

We send you here enclosed the Petition of one Richard 
Arrowsmith, his Majesty's servant, wherein he complain- 
eth unto us, that in February last a number of people 
gathered together in the night and, in disguised apparel, 
did riotously pull up and overthrow a hedge and ditch 
which he had caused to be made about a copse called 
Newland, for preservation of his Majesty's game in that 
part of the forest of Windsor ; and do pray and require 
you (if upon further information you shall find the 
offence to deserve it) to send for such and so many of 
the offenders as you shall think fit, and to proceed 
against them in the Star Chamber, the next term, in 
the behalf of his Majesty, according as is accustomed in 
cases of like nature. And so, &c. 



exteacts from priyy council registers. 421 
Council Register, Oct. 19, 1614. App. 

VII. 2. 

(Orig. in Privy Council Office.) 

Ut supra with the Lord Archbishop. 

A Letter to Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, His Majes- 
ty's Attorney-General. 

Whereas his Majesty hath taken notice of a great re- 
sort of gentlemen of quality and livelihood, together with 
their wives and families, unto the city of London, and 
other principal cities and towns of this realm, with a 
purpose (as it appeareth) to settle their habitation there, 
for saving of charges and other private respects. His 
Majesty, considering of his great wisdom how prejudicial 
these courses may prove to the general government of 
the kingdom, when the country shall be deprived of the 
assistance and presence of so many gentlemen, who for 
the most part bear office or authority in the counties 
where they dwell, besides the great decay of hospitality 
and other inconveniences that will ensue thereupon, is 
therefore pleased that a Proclamation shall be published, 
enjoining and commanding all such persons aforemen- 
tioned to repair unto their several dwellings in the coun- 
try, before the last of November next, there to abide and 
continue as heretofore they have usually done, which we 
require you to draw accordingly and to make ready for 
his Majesty's signature with as much convenient expe- 
dition as you may. And so, &c. 



422 FKANCIS BACON. 

App. (Orig. in Privy Council Office.) 

VII. 3. 

At Whitehall, on Tuesday the 20th of February, 1615. 

Present : — 
The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. 
Lord Treasurer. Lord Bishop of Winchester. 

Lord Privy Seal. Lord Knollis. 

Duke of Lennox. Mr. Secretary Winwood. 

Lord Chamberlain. Mr. Secretary Lake. 

Earl of Mar. Mr. Chancellor of the Ex- 

Earl of Dunfermline. chequer. 

Master of the Rolls. 

Upon a difference depending at the Board between the 
Dutch Congregation of the town of Colchester and one 
William Goodwin and others of that town, as will appear 
by petitions offered to the Board by both parties. For- 
asmuch as the matter consisting of many parties will 
require a full and deliberate hearing for the better set- 
tling of the trade of Bay and Say making, in that place. 
Their Lordships have this day ordered that his Majesty's 
Attorney-General, calling all parties before him, do hear 
and examine the differences and allegations on both sides, 
and thereupon to make report of his opinion thereof, and 
what course he thinketh fit to be observed therein, in 
writing, by Thursday next in the afternoon, that such 
further order may thereupon be taken as shall be ex- 
pedient. 



EXTBACTS FROM PRIVY COUNCIL REGISTEES. 423 

(Orig. in Privy Council Office.) App. 

At the Court at Whitehall, on Wednesday in the after- vn - 4 - 
noon, the 5th of April, 1615 : — 
Present : — 
Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. 
Lord Chancellor. Mr. Secretary Win wood. 

Lord Treasurer. Mr. Chancellor of the Ex- 

Duke of Lennox. chequer. 

Lord Chamberlain. Lord Chief Justice. 

Lord Fenton. Mr. Chancellor of the Duchy. 

Lord Knollis. Sir Thomas Lake. 

William Martin, Eecorder of the city of Exeter, being 
heretofore sent for by order from their Lordships, and this 
day called unto the Board, and charged by his Majesty's 
Attorney-General to have lately written a History of Eng- 
land, wherein were many passages so unaptly inserted as 
might justly have drawn some heavy and severe censure 
upon him for the same. On his humble submission and 
hearty repentance and acknowledgment of his fault, their 
Lordships were pleased to become mediators unto his 
Majesty for his grace and favor to be extended towards 
him, which being happily obtained, he is freely dismissed 
from all further attendance ; being first enjoined by their 
Lordships to manifest hereafter in some short declaration 
in writing (as he hath already done by words) the true 
sense and understanding he hath of his offence, together 
with his repentance for the same. And it is further or- 
dered by their Lordships that the bond which he sealed to 
his Majesty's use for his appearance at the Board should 
be cancelled and delivered unto him. 



App. 
VIII 



424 FRANCIS BACON. 

No. VIII 

Report by the Barons op the Exchequer, the Solicitor 
General (Sir Francis Bacon), and the Recorder 
op London, to the Privy Council. 

(Orig. in State Paper Office.) 

May it please your Lordships, — 
We have received your honorable letters bearing date 
the 25th day of this instant month of June, and enclosed 
in the same a note of a suit which has been of late pre- 
sented to his Majesty and by him referred to your Lord- 
ships' consideration : the substance of which suit is to 
have a warrant directed to some officer to demand and 
collect fines upon actions of debt and other finable actions 
to be sued in all other Courts of England (other than 
the Courts held at Westminster), concerning which your 
Lordships require us to certify you our opinions in all 
points at our speediest opportunity. We have therefore, 
according to your honorable directions, considered of the 
suit. And do find it a matter of so great importance as 
we must humbly pray leave to have time to confer with 
the rest of the Judges, that upon our joint conference 
your Lordships may have the more full satisfaction both 
for law and conveniency. Humbly taking our leaves, 
this 28th of June, 1608. f*' 6 7 4 

Your Lordships' to command. 



Cambridge : Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Blgclow, & Co. 



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